


Shattered

by Verowak



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strong Haruno Sakura
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 11:43:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19356364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verowak/pseuds/Verowak
Summary: First story I'm posting on AO3, please let me know if there's anything funky.This is also my first fanfic, I have 21 chapter done, just going to post one chapter every few weeks until it's caught of to my ffn one.Please don't be shy to let me know what you like so far of the story!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First story I'm posting on AO3, please let me know if there's anything funky.
> 
> This is also my first fanfic, I have 21 chapter done, just going to post one chapter every few weeks until it's caught of to my ffn one.
> 
> Please don't be shy to let me know what you like so far of the story!

Haruno Sakura felt on top of the world. It was an exceptionally warm day for March and she had just turned six years old. This meant that her parents would finally allow her to attend the shinobi Academy with her only friend, Yamanaka Ino. Her civilian parents were reluctant to enroll their only daughter, because they worried about her having such a dangerous profession. They kept hoping that she would grow out of her shinobi phase and lead a civilian life like the rest of the Haruno family.

Her parents, Mebuki and Kizashi, were well known merchants who travelled all across the shinobi nations, with primary points of contact in Suna and Kiri; from which they imported herbs, both medicinal and poisonous, and silk. Despite the fact that they owned a house in Konoha, they spent the majority of their time outside of the village, searching for the best deals and herbs across the nations. Sakura sometimes travelled with her parents, but more often than not, she stayed in town with her aunt, Natsuko, and uncle, Hiroki. 

Hiroki was Kizashi’s younger brother and he was the first Haruno shinobi. He had shoulder length light blonde hair, which he typically tied into a short ponytail, and light brown eyes. His muscles were not very defined despite the fact he was a shinobi, seeing as he was a paper nin. Though he had a scar beneath his right ear that ran down his neck until his collarbone, he was a handsome man, and noticeably taller than the rest of his family. Most members of the Haruno family measured between 175 -180cm, but Hiroki was an exception; as he measured a head taller than everyone else. In contrast it seemed comical that he married his genin teammate, Natsuko, who was a head shorter than the Haruno family. What Natsuko lacked in height, she made up in speed and beauty. She had the lithe body of a ballerina and somehow managed to retain most of her feminine curves. She had dark brown hair that reached the middle of her back and dark brown eyes that always held a glimmer of happiness. Natsuko came from a small family of shinobi. Her family was not big or prominent enough to be a clan, but they were loyal shinobi nonetheless.

Natsuko and Hiroki both became Chunin the third time they participated in the Chunin exams. In all three exams, they both struggled during their 1v1 matches; it was by sheer luck they were matched up against each other during the third exam and the only reason they got promoted - had they had to face any other genin, they would have lost very quickly since they were both weak physically. Despite being weak, they were still able to complete C rank missions with B rank missions being a very rare occurrence. Their most common workplaces were the Hokage Tower as assistants, the library as clerks and the front gates as gate guards. 

Natsuko was a sensor and occasionally worked as a messenger, contacting the shinobi summoned by the Hokage. Hiroki, on the other hand, was knowledgeable about poisons. He occasionally worked for the intelligence department and crafted poisons for ANBU to use. 

Natsuko and Hiroki had a son, Takeshi, who had no interest in becoming a shinobi and was instead interested in a life as a civilian. As such, he spent most of his time travelling with Kizashi and Mebuki, while Sakura spent most of her time with Hiroki and Natsuko.

Seeing as her parents were out of town, Sakura was spending her birthday with her aunt and uncle. All she wanted for her sixth birthday was to spend it as shinobi spend their days on a mission; travelling through the forest, hunting their food and camping for the night. Sakura was so excited and determined to learn more about the shinobi life and her aunt and uncle were more than happy to give that to her for her birthday. 

_______________________________________

Having spent the night camping and having caught rabbits for breakfast for her aunt and uncle in the morning, Sakura was slowly becoming a shinobi in her own eyes. Her clothes were covered in dirt and she sported a few scratches - the rabbits were quite skilled in evasion techniques - but in the end, Sakura had outsmarted two adult rabbits and proudly dragged them back to camp. Although she still wasn't comfortable killing an animal, she vowed to improve and be able to kill her catch next time she went camping with Natsuko and Hiroki; as she was confident they would bring her again. 

After everything was packed up, the trio started their day long journey back to Konoha through the dense forest. Sakura walked a few steps ahead of her aunt and uncle, occasionally skipping and letting the air run through her long, pink hair. For this excursion, she had decided to not wear her typical red dress and opted for a dark blue short sleeve shirt with a light grey jacket and black shinobi pants that Natsuko had given her specifically for this trip. Sakura also brought along a satchel in which she kept a few kunai and shuriken - reluctantly given to her by her parents before they left for Suna earlier that week. She wasn't going to use them - they were sharp, and she had never practiced with them before - but they helped make her day as a shinobi more realistic. 

“Sakura-chan, don't wander too far ahead, we need to stay in formation.” Hiroki reminded Sakura teasingly. The child quickly turned around and ran back to her uncle, hugging one of her birthday presents - a book about chakra theory and exercises given to her by Natsuko - tightly to her chest. 

“Hai taichou!” Sakura replied while grinning, sliding in between her aunt and uncle, keeping pace with them. Natsuko chuckled and brought her hand up to ruffle Sakura’s hair playfully, which only served to widen the girl’s grin. Even though most little girls wouldn't want their hair tangled, Natsuko knew Sakura loved getting her hair ruffled, as it represented closeness and caring in her eyes, something only people who care deeply about each other would do. 

Sakura listened intently to the noises in the forest, trying to hear any sounds or sense any chakra from her surroundings; she was always on guard. Natsuko had been teaching her how to sense chakra since Sakura first showed interest in becoming a shinobi at the age of 4 years old, which, at the time, had made the little girl jump for joy. Sakura was finally getting the hang of it and was able to sense her aunt’s, her uncle’s and even Ino’s chakra when they were within a few blocks of her. It took some time for Sakura to decipher and memorize a person’s chakra signature, but when she managed to remember it, there was no way she would forget it. To her, a chakra signature was something she could not forget even if she tried, she knew those three signatures just as well as her own; they were forever engraved into the depths of her being.

“Rule #25?” Hiroki asked out of the blue.

“A shinobi must never show their tears…” Sakura quickly replied, glancing up at her uncle. Hiroki looked at Sakura fondly with a smile, raising one eyebrow in anticipation. 

“Unless surrounded by people who love you.” She added, with a smile, and reached for Hiroki’s hand to give it a squeeze, to which Hiroki knelt down and kissed Sakura’s forehead. Hiroki and Natsuko both believed that all the shinobi rules had exceptions and they were determined to show Sakura that shinobi didn't have to kill their emotions to be useful. The Harunos were emotionally expressive; they didn’t shy away from giving hugs and kisses. In fact, Sakura was encouraged to express her gratitude either with a hug or a kiss to the cheek or to the forehead. Hiroki and Natsuko both also believed in teamwork and being there for and supporting those precious to you, an attitude that was ingrained in Konoha shinobi, giving the other nations the impression that Konoha was too soft. 

“Rule #4?” Natsuko prompted.

“A shinobi must always put the mission first… unless a friend is in danger.” Sakura stated with a weak smile. 

Thinking about that rule always reminded her of the story that her aunt and uncle had told her about the legendary White Fang who chose to save his comrades instead of completing his mission and was consequently dishonoured by the shinobi of the village, even the comrades he saved. Thinking about that story angered Sakura; she didn’t understand how anyone could hold a grudge on someone who saved their lives, especially if they were comrades or friends. The first time Sakura heard the story of the White Fang, she vowed to treat her friends - when she would actually have some - so well that they would never feel unwanted. Her heart quickened at the thought of having friends to be with and to go to the park with, instead of having bullies laugh at her and hurt her because of her larger than average forehead. 

“Rule 13?” Hiroki continued. 

“A shinobi must prepare before it’s too late… Which means, I should learn how to make poisons right?” Sakura asked as she loosened her grip on Hiroki’s hand, and tugged his arm while putting on her best puppy eyes. 

Kizashi had protested and forbade Hiroki from teaching Sakura about poisons when she first showed interest in a shinobi life, because one wrong ingredient or one wrong step could spell disaster. Despite this, Hiroki knew that Sakura was a lot more mature and prudent than the genin twice her age, which is why he had already wrapped an introductory book on poisonous herbs on her bed for her to find when they arrived home later that day. Hiroki kept telling himself that he was giving the book to her since it would be a useful book for her shinobi career, but deep down, he just wanted to spoil her as much as possible, and any excuse was a valid one in his mind. 

Natsuko had already promised Sakura that they would bring her to the library once she finished her book about chakra, and maybe even, at some point, they would let her read the various books and scrolls in the genin and chunin sections. A free pass at reading to her heart's content was all Sakura could ever ask for. Hiroki knew they were spoiling the girl, but to them, they were finally able to pass on their knowledge and specialties to someone and they were going to make sure she excelled in the few things they could teach her. Had Takeshi been interested in being a shinobi, they would have taught them both, however, Takeshi was solely interested in being a merchant, and spent his years shadowing Kizashi and Mebuki. Hiroki wasn't fooling himself, it felt like Sakura was his own child and Takeshi was his nephew, though Sakura would always remain her daddy’s girl. 

“Hmmm… how about I make you a deal Sakura-chan?” Sakura’s eyes filled with hope and excitement at Hiroki’s suggestion. “Once you learn how to suppress your chakra - it doesn’t have to be undetectable, but at least suppress half of your chakra- I’ll start teaching you how to make poisons.” Hiroki tried his best to stifle his laughter at the girl’s expression. He could see her mentally planning the quickest and most efficient way for her to mask her chakra so that she could be taught about poisons. She was just so adorable when she was determined to learn something new.

“Suppress my chakra… that should be… page 87” Sakura thought out loud, opening her birthday present and flipping through the pages. Even though she had only just received her present that morning, she had memorized the table of contents to ensure she could quickly reference the book when required. If you asked Sakura, her intelligence was average - she only had herself to compare to, so she fell well within the norm - but if you asked Ino, Sakura was sometimes too smart for her age. She analyzed and planned everything, even when going to the park. 

Ever since Sakura started going to the park, she was bullied because of her larger than average forehead and her pink hair. The kids at the park - mostly girls but lately, boys joined the group - physically, and emotionally harmed her as often as possible. Because of the bullies, Sakura tried to plan her visits to the park to avoid a confrontation, though it wasn’t always successful, and she came home with cuts and bruises more often than not.

Natsuko’s shoulders stiffened suddenly as she quickly turned her head to look east, her brown hair whipping around her shoulders. There were two very strong chakras - possibly A rank, though most likely S rank - heading towards them, quickly. She turned her gaze to Hiroki who had been watching her intently since the stiffening of her shoulders; he knew her enough to know something bad was coming their way. 

“S” Natsuko whispered above Sakura’s head, trying to not distract the girl from her reading, and held up two fingers. Hiroki’s eyes widened and his face paled considerably - they had to leave stat!. 

“Say Sakura-chan,” Hiroki’s voice cracked and trembled, “did you want to fly through the trees for a while?” He managed to smile as he crouched down, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Sakura squealed, closing her big book of chakra and handing it to Hiroki to hold while she climbed onto his back, excited for the upcoming adventure. Sakura loved the feeling of dashing through the trees with the wind in her hair and on her face - it made her feel alive.

“Hold on tight!” Hiroki hurried and ran forward, Natsuko keeping pace with him. He glanced occasionally at his wife, hoping for good news, but the horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach only worsened as Natsuko’s expression grew more and more grim each time he saw her. 

They had been running at full tilt for 20 minutes, but Natsuko didn’t think they would be able to outrun their possible pursuers, given the immense skill gap. Although they were a 3h run away from Konoha, it was possible that ANBU patrols would find them in time. This was their only hope of survival, unless they got really lucky and the foreign ninjas would simply ignore them and continue on their way. 

Suddenly, Natsuko couldn’t sense the 2 chakra signatures anymore, and didn’t know if it was a good sign or very bad one.

“Hiro-kun...I can’t sense them anymore…”

Hiroki’s heartbeat sped up - in fear or relief, he wasn’t sure - and could only think of one way to proceed. “Take Sakura and run back quickly, I can try to distract them in case they’re coming towards us.”

Sakura was not stupid, she knew something terrible was about to happen. She didn’t want to leave her uncle behind, but being the child, she wasn’t given a choice. Natsuko hesitated for a second, and with tears threatening to fall, she helped Sakura get up on her back and kissed Hiroki one last time. Hiroki gave Sakura one last kiss on her forehead and gave her a quick hug, before motioning for Natsuko to get going.

Natsuko took off quickly and managed a few leaps off the tree branches when a hand attached to tendrils latched onto her throat out of nowhere, slamming her into a tree. Unfortunately, Sakura took the brunt of the impact and it felt like she was being crushed, feeling her bones crack throughout her body. Sakura had never felt so much pain in her life and hoped that she would never have to go through something similar again. She had gotten used to being beat up by the bullies at the playground, but none of those incidents compared to what she was feeling at the moment. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move, and it even hurt to think. She let out choked screams until her throat felt like sandpaper.

She felt her aunt be pulled away from her, causing Sakura to fall from a great distance - at least as high as the village gates - to the ground, onto her right ankle. She heard a loud crack and felt her left ankle roll over under her weight, causing pain to shoot up her leg. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes, but she kept silent, as she watched her aunt get slammed onto the ground by a man wearing a black cloak with red clouds and a scratched out forehead protector from Takigakure. The man looked like a living demon, with his green irises and red sclerae. He had tendrils coming out of his body and his mouth. Sakura never knew she could have nightmares while still awake - there was no way this was happening - it was just too much for her to comprehend since they should be safe in Fire Country, so close to Konoha. 

Sakura took a sudden step forward on her broken ankle and immediately passed out from the pain. She woke up face first on the grass, her body hurting, not knowing how much time had passed, but one thing she knew for certain; her aunt was not faring well. In fact, Sakura didn't think her aunt had been able to land a single hit on her attacker despite her speed. 

A noise alerted Sakura to look behind her and she managed to turn around to see her uncle bleeding from multiple large cuts on his legs and arms. Hiroki slowly walked towards the demon and Sakura’s struggling aunt and all the little girl wanted to do was scream - scream at her uncle to stop and run away, hoping that maybe he could run far enough away from the demon - but as Sakura opened her mouth, a man appeared behind her uncle, and kicked Hiroki’s legs out from under him. 

The man was a head taller than her uncle - how that was possible was beyond Sakura, her uncle was already the tallest in the family and stood out the few times she saw the shinobi of Konoha assembled - and was wearing the black cloak with red clouds just like the demon was. He had short brown hair with pale blue eyes and a scar running from the right side of his forehead, just below his scratched out forehead protector, across his nose and to the lower left of his jawline. He wielded a plain grey kusarigama - holding the sickle in one hand and letting the iron weight drag onto the floor - that dripped with her uncle’s blood which made Sakura sick to her stomach. His face was expressionless, even as he slashed at Hiroki’s chest, which made him seem inhuman - a good match for his demonic partner Sakura thought. 

The blue eyed man dragged Hiroki towards a tree trunk not far from his demonic partner and tied him to the base of the tree in order for Hiroki to watch what they would do to his wife. He looked over at Sakura as he tied her uncle to the tree and it felt like he was hypnotizing her, forcing her to look him square in the eyes. 

“If he loses too much blood, his heart won’t be of any use to me. You better hope that’s not the case or I’ll kill you, you worthless piece of shit.” The tendril man said to his partner, who didn’t seem to care that he was just threatened. He simply finished tying up Hiroki and walked over to Natsuko.

“I want her before you take her heart” stated the pale eyed man calmly, which only served to make the other laugh.

“Not happening, we need to be quick about this and leave, too many chances to get caught.” At this, Sakura felt a glimmer of hope in her chest - they could still survive if other shinobi found them and interrupted the missing nins - but all she could do was sit there trembling, waiting, and hope the two red clouds forgot about her. 

“Fine, then I’ll take the pink haired little girl. I think she’ll be the youngest I’ve ever had.” The man stared at Sakura and began to walk towards her as she tried to crawl towards her uncle, not paying attention to the demon and his partner.

A scream - the worst sound Sakura had ever heard in her life - rang through the forest, and Sakura’s eyes snapped to her aunt as tendrils dug into Natsuko’s chest and blood flowed freely out of her body. The demon stood between her aunt and uncle as tendrils reached for Hiroki’s chest. Sakura struggled to stand up, but she hurt all over and her body wasn’t responding to her demands, so she was forced to sit there and watch as tendrils burrowed into both of her relatives’ chests. She tried to cover her ears to at least dampen the screams coming from both her aunt and uncle, but she couldn’t drown much of it out at all. She couldn't stop the sobs as they escaped her. 

The blue eyed man stepped into Sakura’s line of sight, a short distance from her, and slowly took out five kunai and some senbon which caught Sakura’s eye. He threw a kunai at Sakura’s feet to make sure he had her attention. “It’s just you and me baby doll, so let’s have a little fun, shall we? The more you can dodge, the less I’ll hurt you later, seems fair don’t you think?” the man stated as he smirked at her. There was a look in his eyes that Sakura had never seen directed at her before. She had seen others express that emotion when seeing their favorite food after a long day. It was the first emotion this man expressed and it terrified Sakura. 

In a sobering flash, Sakura felt a rush of pain as a kunai sliced through her left arm and left a 4 inch long, deep cut across her bicep. Sakura yelled and cried as pain invaded her body once again. How can I dodge if I can’t even see him throw anything she thought. She managed to stand up on her two shaky legs and hopped - using her only functional one - away from her enemy but felt a senbon prick her in the back of her left thigh, losing all feeling in that leg. She reached out, hoping to find anything to stabilize herself but only managed to scrape her hands on the bark of a tree before clumsily falling face first in the grass.

Breathing in big gulps of air, Sakura noticed that her aunt’s screams had stopped, and only her uncle's pained screams could be heard now. She had managed to tilt her head and see that the demon was now solely focused on her uncle and what looked to be a human heart in one of his hands. Sakura felt her stomach turn and she threw up on the grass beside her. Where are the ANBU?! Why has nobody found us yet? Sakura thought as she hyperventilated and was slowly coming to terms with the fact that she would die very soon.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Three kunai embedded themselves in Sakura’s body - one in her left hand, one in the back of her right knee and one deep in her left shoulder - as she laid her head on the ground and welcomed death as long as it stopped the pain. Sakura’s throat was now raw from screaming, so she decided that she would quietly wait for death while thinking of all the good memories she had made in her short life.

“Ikuro, we’re leaving.” the demon stated as he appeared in front of Sakura and his partner, whilst holding onto 2 hearts. Sakura managed to lift her head and look at her uncle’s dead body, still tied to the tree not far from her aunt’s body. Tears welled up in her eyes, and fell freely down her face; she had just lost the two most precious people in the world to her and had to watch them get brutally murdered in a living nightmare. 

“Then leave Kakuzu!” Ikuro snarled at his partner without shifting his gaze from the pinkette “I’ll meet you back at the base later.” At this, Kakuzu shot a glance to the forest from which they came and stiffened. He looked back at Ikuro and nodded, then quickly rushed into the forest, continuing on their original path.

The blue eyed man stood next to Sakura, frowning at the fact the her face was turned to the grass which meant that he couldn’t see her pained expression. He knelt down beside Sakura, took out his kusarigama and whispered into her ear “You didn’t dodge very well baby doll, I guess I’ll have to punish you a little bit huh?”

Sakura felt his hand grip the back of her neck pinning her in place as he slowly and painfully dragged his sickle from just above her right shoulder blade all the way down the right side of her body, leaving a one inch deep cut from her shoulder blade down to her ankle. Sakura screamed out from the pain as the man stood up and admired his work and the bloodbath he was causing with a knowing grin. Sakura struggled to crawl away from the man, but he kicked her on her the side and then rolled her onto her back, the kunai and senbon digging deeper into her body.

Black spots slowly clouded Sakura’s vision as a result of her blood loss from her latest injury - her right side bled profusely, staining the grass red. Her end was coming closer and closer as she stared up at the pale eyed man who looked longingly at her.

“You’re just making it harder for yourself you know, trying to escape all the time” He said, while swinging the iron weight of his kusarigama around “guess there’s one way to make sure you won’t try to squirm anymore… now which leg?” he pondered, as he stared down at her expressionlessly.

Sakura was drifting in and out of consciousness at this point, and could only just piece together what the man was saying. She didn’t like the way he swung his weapon around nor the way he stared at her intently, as it could only promise more pain - though by this point she was pretty sure she couldn’t possibly feel anymore pain without dying. She felt unconsciousness settling in and welcomed it, hoping this would be the end. As her eyelids grew heavier, she saw Ikuro spin and slam the iron weight down with all of his might, bringing on excruciating pain in her right leg, making the distinct sound that could only be bones shattering. She screamed as loudly as she could, damaging her vocal cords in the process and instantly snapping back into consciousness. Her eyes widened as she saw the man smile as he reveled in her agony. The intense pain blocked all of Sakura’s other senses. She couldn’t hear anything nor see anything and struggled to take a breath as her body shook uncontrollably.

“Hmmm… enough foreplay don’t you think?” Ikuro exclaimed while tossing his weapon to the side and kneeling down on his knees at Sakura’s feet. His lustful gaze was on Sakura as he moved to straddle her hips and place his hand on her cheek when suddenly he stiffened and quickly turned to look behind him. “For fuck’s sakes, are you serious?” he mumbled to himself as he stretched his arm out to grab his kusarigama. “Now you wait here for a bit baby doll, I’ll be right back.” He grabbed Sakura’s hand and kissed the back of it and continued on to kiss every one of her fingers in turn before getting up as Sakura felt four chakra signatures entering the scene of the disaster.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Chapter up, abouy 19 more to go :)
> 
> I would love to hear what you think.

Akio never thought he would be using his meager medical skills to heal a dog anytime soon. Having only learned how to diagnose injuries and heal cuts and scrapes a week ago, there was no way he could mend a dog’s broken bones. 

Akio’s ANBU team was completing two assassination missions on the border of Suna, when one of their targets managed to get a hit on two of his captain’s summons. The first dog, Bisuke, suffered three broken ribs and the second dog, Shiba, suffered a broken front paw while attempting to distract their target.

Unfortunately for their target, this was the first time any of the ANBU captain’s summons got injured which caused the silver haired shinobi - Hatake Kakashi - to enter a blind rage and ruthlessly kill his target. With Akio’s help, they managed to complete one assassination mission. The two other members of the team were left to face off against their second target and a small army of 16 mid to high ranking shinobi a few kilometers away. Akio knew his two comrades could take care of the second mission, seeing as they were two of the top shinobi in the village. However, it would seem that the taller of the two suffered a stab wound to his left side when he intercepted a blow meant for his friend.

Once the missions were completed, Akio had diagnosed the two canines’ injuries and, upon realizing that he didn't have the required skills to properly heal them, created a splint for the broken paw and bandaged the dogs as best as possible to minimize the pain. He then quickly healed his captain and two teammates’ injuries, and bandaged his teammate with the stab wound. 

Akio’s chakra control was always slightly above average and was the only reason he was capable of learning the basics of medical ninjutsu - he didn’t believe he had the control necessary for major surgery, but he would learn as much as he was physically capable. There was a lack of medical-nin in Konoha, which fueled his determination to learn this branch of ninjutsu, in order to hopefully one day be able to save his family and friends if needed. He had been learning medical ninjutsu for the past two years and had finally managed to perform the mystical palm technique without wasting much chakra. 

“Sorry taichou, this is the best I can do for them.” Akio informed his superior. 

“It’s ok, you’re not on this mission as a medic, you did more than I expected.” The silver haired captain replied and crouched down to his injured ninken. His ANBU mask prevented his team from seeing any emotion, but Akio knew his captain was worried for his summons and felt responsible for them getting injured.

“Taichou, we should leave before others arrive.” Akio stated, seeing smoke in the distance. The two ANBU that had fought against 16 shinobi of chunin and jonin rank, in addition to their assassination target, had fought in an impressive battle of ninjutsu. The fight, however, had been like a beacon, and had most likely attracted the attention of all shinobi in the area. 

“Bisuke, Shiba, are you two good to go home?” The captain asked the two ninken who nodded their head. The two dogs vanished in a puff of smoke as the silver haired man stood up and motioned to his team that they were leaving.

The journey home was silent for the next day and a half until the silver haired ANBU stopped suddenly on a branch. 

“Two strong chakra signatures southwest of here. We have to backtrack a bit but we’ll go check it out.” The captain stated. He turned around towards his teammates and continued “is everyone in good enough shape for another fight?” 

The three other ANBU members nodded. 

“Taichou, there are three very faint signatures with them, and they're getting weaker by the minute.” the taller of Akio’s teammates indicated. 

“Then let's hurry.” The silver haired man replied as he ran towards the chakra signatures. 

The scene Akio stumbled upon was an absolute bloodbath. There were two adult bodies lying a short distance away from where he landed on the ground, covered in blood and not moving an inch. Akio assumed that these two adults had died a horrible death, judging by the amount of blood soaking the grass around the bodies and shredded flesh on their exposed chests. 

Somehow one of the two strong signatures had managed to escape, but the second signature belonged to a man wearing a black cloak with red clouds. The man seemed to be kissing a hand before he slowly stood up and faced the four ANBU members; he had brown hair, pale blue eyes and a scar across his face - a face none of them would ever forget. Kakashi informed Akio to look for survivors and if possible, heal them, while he and his ninken would search for the shinobi who escaped. 

Akio managed to tear his eyes away from the two bodies and noticed a patch of pink on the ground, where the cloaked figure was previously kneeling on the ground. He took a step towards the odd colour and noticed that a child was laying there, her body shaking and her breath ragged as she lifted her head to look around. 

The little girl’s head suddenly fell back to the ground as she hyperventilated while Akio rushed to her side to diagnose her state and his two teammates engaged the enemy. His eyes widened as he let his chakra scan her body and couldn’t believe the amount of damage inflicted upon this child; he hoped his teammates could bring down the monster he assumed did this to her. He sent more chakra throughout her body to finish his diagnosis and gritted his teeth at all the punctures and cuts he discovered, but the most sickening wound was her shattered tibia and fibula in her right leg. There were bone fragments in her entire lower leg, embedded in her muscles, tendons and ligaments. Akio could only imagine the amount of agony this girl had been through today and cursed himself that he neither had enough chakra to numb her pain nor the skill to heal her half decently. He also noticed that she still had 2 kunai and a senbon embedded in her from the back, which meant she was lying on the weapons and they kept digging deeper into her body.

Akio realized that the only thing he could do for the girl was to give her a blood replenishing pill and heal as many wounds as possible to prevent further blood loss. He wasn’t sure what to do or where to start; as he had never had to deal with this much damage to a human body before - the worst injury he ever managed to heal was a shallow kunai cut from training with his team. Taking a deep breath he tried to catalogue the injuries and determine the most critical one as a starting point. He noticed that most of her injuries were done by either a kunai or the missing nin’s kusarigama and managed to go deep enough to cut more than just flesh - muscles, tendons, ligaments and organs had been perforated.

“Taichou!” Akio called out sharply, hoping that his captain would come help him. While keeping a hand on the girl to send chakra to her injuries, he grabbed his pouch and laid it beside him. The silver haired ANBU and his ninken appeared beside him, and Akio saw both of his eyes widen at the sight before him. “I need you to go through my pouch, grab the red pill and get her to eat it quickly, I don’t know how much more blood she can lose.”

Kakashi found the pill easily enough then stood still for a second, trying to figure out the best way to get the girl to take the pill seeing as she was unconscious. He knelt down beside her still form and extended a hand to shake her shoulder as her breathing rapidly increased; she was waking up. The ninken had gathered around the girl, hoping that she would feel comforted with them protecting her.

“We’re here to help you, just eat this quickly.” Kakashi stated flatly as the little girl’s eyes flew open and fear briefly flashed across her face before it changed to joy. Kakashi couldn’t understand why she would be-

“White... fang…” the little girl whispered through her ragged breaths while staring at Kakashi. Akio’s eyes widened and shot a glance at his captain; it was taboo to mention Kakashi’s father around him, hopefully he wouldn’t do anything drastic to the little girl. 

Instead, the ANBU captain surprised the medic in training by calmly reiterating through clenched teeth “I need you to take this pill, can you do that for me?” The little girl grunted and struggled to move her shaking hand until Kakashi told her to open her mouth, and he proceeded to feed her the pill. Thankfully, she was able to chew and swallow - Akio didn’t think Kakashi would have been up to helping her chew by moving her jaw up and down, though Akio would have thoroughly enjoyed watching it - but she cried out in pain when she swallowed. 

“Boar, anything else you need me to do for the girl before I track the missing nin’s partner?” the captain asked as he turned to look at Akio. 

“I’d like to remove the kunai and senbon from her, but she shouldn’t be moved right now, so no, I should be ok from here on out, though I hope she holds out until we get her back to the village.” Akio glanced at his two teammates battling against their enemy; he was always amazed at their cohesiveness. The two dark haired shinobi were very close and always had each others’ back in battle. It always looked like they could communicate telepathically, since they never said a word yet always anticipated the other’s movements. The one thing that worried Akio was that the blue eyed man was keeping up and fending them both off at the same time; something he never thought possible.

“Bisuke, Shiba, you guys can head back home, sorry for summoning you.” Kakashi told his two injured summons with a twinge of guilt before continuing, “Boar, as soon as Bear and Panther finish, have Bear bring the girl back, and Panther seal the two bodies and the missing nin. I just have to make sure the other one isn’t heading towards the village.” Akio nodded as his captain took off with the rest of his pack while he continued to pump chakra into the girl’s leg, trying his hardest to soothe any amount of pain.

The girl’s anguished screams stopped as she fell unconscious and her breathing finally slowed down, which made Akio release a breath he didn’t know he was holding - unconsciousness was probably the only way she wouldn’t be in pain. While pumping chakra through her body, he was barely able to feel her heartbeat; in fact, his own heart skipped a beat when he could no longer feel hers. His breath caught in his throat and he let out a hoarse “fuck!” as his eyes widened - he was not letting her die, she was too young.

Akio stumbled from his crouching position to get in place for chest compressions. He placed his shaking hands on her chest and sent chakra to feel for her heartbeat. Luckily he felt a very faint beating and sighed in relief.

“What’s wrong?” Bisuke asked with a hint of worry. Both he and Shiba had not left the area like Kakashi had told them to; they were both staring at the girl lying on the ground, surrounded by blood.

“I thought her heart stopped.” Akio replied, hesitating on healing her from his new position just so he could keep a closer eye on her heart, or placing himself closer to her leg to try and sooth the pain once she regained consciousness.

“What can we do to help the kid?” It was Shiba who asked this time, wanting to help the child despite being injured.

“Can you try to keep her awake? It’s either she’s in pain and awake or she’s out cold and I may not be able to monitor if her heart stops.” Akio relented. This was a lose-lose situation, the girl either died or was in excruciating pain.

“I can try to keep her conscious if you’d like, just tell me where she isn’t hurt.” Bisuke offered as he moved closer to the girl.

Easier said than done Akio thought to himself and said “Her head and neck are your best bet.”

Bisuke slowly hobbled over to Sakura’s head and lay down next to her. He gave her a quick lick on the cheek, and rested his cold, wet nose on her temple, not wanting to accidentally tickle her or startled her awake. 

The girl groaned and whimpered; trying to catch her breath as her eyes opened slowly - why was her face wet and cold? Did the man cut her face when she blacked out? She turned her head to the side and saw the dog lying down beside her, which confused the hell out of her. 

“Hey there kid, my name’s Bisuke. Hope you don’t mind but I’ve been tasked to keep you awake”

“I’m not dead yet?” Sakura asked as she tried to move, her voice raspy from all her screaming. Stabbing pain shot through all her wounds and she cried out, her throat hurting just as much as her cuts. “P-please kill me. I can’t do this anymore. Please...” She sobbed quietly, having completely given up on life. 

Akio didn’t know what to do; he had never seen someone so young ready to die. No, not ready to die, asking for death. Pleading for death even. He just didn’t know what to do - the only thing he knew for sure was that he was not going to kill her - and he was quickly running out of chakra. He knew that soon, the child’s pain would come full force and it wouldn’t be pretty. He glanced up at her through his mask, willing her to be strong. Seeing a child hurt was never easy, and he didn’t trust his voice to be steady if he spoke up.

Luckily his captain’s other dog, Shiba, piped in as he laid down on the girl’s chest where there was no blood “You can hold me and squeeze when it hurts. I know I can’t take the pain away, but I can try to help.” 

Sakura looked at the dog laying on her and moved her right arm to encircle the dog, but the deep cut on her back pulled open and her arm fell limply by her side. She then tried to move her left arm, but the kunai in her shoulder dug deeper and caused her to yelp in pain and again, her arm fell to her side. She felt Bisuke licking her cheek, and a quiet chuckle broke through her sobbing. She settled for moving her forearms to pet Shiba, which thankfully didn’t cause her any pain.

“Is your hair naturally pink?” Bisuke asked while sniffing Sakura’s hair. “It’s really pretty and soft” Sakura giggled softly at the dog’s comment and gave him a small smile while shaking from the pain.

“Yeah, it’s really pink.” Sakura responded quietly, her eyes growing heavier by the second “But I think... Shiba’s fur is softer than my hair though… yours too I bet” her eyes shut completely and her head rolled to the side. 

“Sorry Pinky, I can’t let you fall asleep just yet.” Bisuke stated before he started licking Sakura’s cheek to wake her up.

Akio silently thanked Kakashi’s ninken for distracting the girl and keeping her awake and alive while he eased her pain.

Out of the corner of his eye, Akio saw a flicker of light and he snapped his head to the side. He noticed a kunai with an explosive tag just in time for him to instinctively grab the girl and two dogs and body flicker out of range of the explosion. As soon as he reappeared a distance away, the girl started hyperventilating and shaking profusely while crying out from the pain. He had unwittingly caused all of the child’s injuries to move and reopen as he moved her off the ground. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Akio panicked in his head.

Bear and Panther appeared near Akio protectively and glanced at the girl in their teammate’s arms. She was deathly pale, covered in blood and silently screaming. They turned their attention to the blue eyed man as he let out a low whistle.

“Well boys, I think it’s about time we ended this little warm up so I can bring her home with me huh?” the missing nin Ikuro casually stated, swinging his sickle around with the grace of a dancer. 

Ikuro crouched low and gave the three ANBU a cocky smirk as he appeared behind Panther bringing his weapon down quickly on the shortest ANBU operative. Luckily, Panther already predicted his enemy’s movements and stopped the sickle with his tanto, allowing Bear to thrust his own sword into the missing nin’s side. Ikuro growled as he twisted his sickle with one hand, forcing Panther to let go of his tanto. With his other hand, Ikuro swung the weight of his kusarigama around himself and towards Bear’s masked face. Bear disappeared just before getting hit, and reappeared several meters away, where he breathed in deeply, releasing his Gokakyu no jutsu (Great fireball technique) towards the fighting duo. 

As soon as Panther’s tanto was out of his hands, he sidestepped the swing of the sickle and layered two genjutsu around his teammate so the missing nin wouldn’t find him. The young ANBU focused on being the distraction for his cousin as he saw the fire coming towards him. He tactfully maneuvered his enemy between himself and the incoming fireball and jumped into the trees as the flames came closer. When he landed on the branch, he felt a hard object pierce through his shoulder, causing him to fall to the ground. He glanced up and saw the blue eyed man standing on the branch he was previously on, grinning wildly. 

“You’ll have to do better than that.” the cloaked man stated confidently. Little did he know Bear was still covered by a genjutsu and had appeared behind him, quickly making hand signs for his offensive body flicker technique. Panther crouched down in a ready stance, not wanting to let the enemy know his cousin was seconds away from attacking. The young ANBU put his tanto away and started a long chain of hand signs, too fast for the enemy to see - and it was a good thing, seeing as Panther was bluffing and not actually using ninjutsu. 

Bear finished his last hand sign and attacked the blue eyed man from every direction, slashing, cutting and stabbing his enemy repeatedly. Sheer luck allowed Ikuro to land a few hits on Bear - he couldn’t seem to get rid of the damn clones, they didn’t disappear when they got hit.

Panther watched for a few seconds before joining the fray, wearing down their enemy. Every once in awhile, he had to parry and dodge the sickle’s attacks, which were not as precise as before because Bear’s body flicker confused the hell out of the missing nin. Bear managed to be everywhere at once, leaving after-images that could strike with actual force.

_________________________

Sakura watched, mesmerized by the speed of the battle - she could barely see a thing - and the cohesiveness of the two ANBU members. Her eyes were glued to the fight when she managed to stay awake and not shake uncontrollably from the pain radiating throughout her body. She felt the man holding her relax as Bear decapitated the terrifying blue eyed man. She flinched as she saw the head fall to the ground, which brought back memories of watching her aunt’s chest getting ripped into. Sakura’s eyes glazed over as she saw the horrors of earlier that day once again. 

“No! Leave her alone!” Sakura cried out, trying to get the demon away from her aunt. She started sobbing uncontrollably and screaming as Shiba nuzzled closer to her, trying to snap her out of her memories. Seeing as that was not working, Akio tried to shake the girl softly, hoping to have better luck but to no avail. Bisuke decided to give her hand a small nip, which instantly made the girl snap back to reality. The two dogs and ANBU member sighed in relief, they simply didn’t enjoy hearing her painful screams, knowing they could never stop the memories from haunting her. 

She looked at the dog who bit her and gave a small smile, thankful for getting rid of her painful flashback of losing two of her important people who taught her everything she knew about being a ninja - which was not much, but they at least expressed the desire to teach her.

Bear appeared near the little group and looked at the girl in his teammate’s arms. He could see the fear and pain in her eyes, but the worst part was seeing her covered in blood and her right leg. Her lower right leg was heavily bruised and he swore those were fragments of bones piercing her skin. Seeing this little girl made a shiver run down his spine; he didn’t understand how she was still conscious, she should be out cold from the sheer pain. He glanced at her face and noticed she was now looking towards the two bodies that were on the ground when his team had arrived. Absently, he noted that his teammate was not moving a single muscle - a remarkable feat on its own after the mission they had and the state of their exhaustion - in order to not move the girl’s leg and send her into another fit of pain.

“C-can I say goodbye…?” The pink haired girl whispered sadly as this was probably the last time she would see their faces in person. 

“You can, but as soon as I move, you will be in pain again. I can’t do anything to stop the pain from your leg. The only thing I can do is wrap it tightly to try to reduce the pain caused by our movement.” Akio responded as-a-matter-of-factly, having decided that there is no way of stopping the pain. “The best bet is to wrap it for the journey home; do you think you can handle a bit more pain?”

The little girl’s emerald eyes started to shimmer with unshed tears, taking a deep breath, she nodded softly against Akio’s shoulder, preparing herself for another world of hurt.

“Bear, take her gently and I’ll wrap her leg.” Akio stated as he shifted the girl into his teammate’s arms. He winced as a painful cry escaped the child’s lips and her breathing sharpened.

“Hey princess, you can hold my hand or shoulder and squeeze as hard as you want when it hurts if that will help.” Bear told the girl softly. She glanced at him for a few seconds before her lips started to quiver and she grabbed his large hand in her right, and his shoulder with her left, getting ready for the flood of pain.

“Can you move closer to that tree so we can reach her from the branch?” Shiba asked Bear, wanting to be as close to the girl as possible. Bear nodded and slowly backed up closer to the tree. Both dogs climbed the tree and stood on the lowest branch, now being at the same height as the girl’s face. Bisuke nuzzled his face in her hair and Shiba rested near her neck.

Akio took out a white roll of bandage and crouched down to have better access to the girl’s leg and took a deep breath. He glanced up at the two dogs and the ANBU and nodded, indicating that he was going to start. As soon as he started wrapping the bandage around her ankle, she jerked and started wailing loudly.

“Stop! Stop it it hurts too much!” Sakura tried wriggling free of her hold, anything to stop the fire spreading through her leg. She shrieked as the pain increased tenfold before she collapsed in Bear’s hold. 

“Fuck that did not sound pleasant” Bear said, trying his best to keep the girl still while Akio wrapped her leg. The two dogs whimpered and crept closer to the girl - they were practically on Bear’s shoulder instead of the branch - her screams tugging away at their instinct to protect someone so young and innocent. 

Akio finished wrapping Sakura’s leg and tucked a strand of her pink locks behind her ear, glancing sadly at her bruised and dirtied face. She reminded him of his sister who had passed away when he was ten years old and she was seven - both of the girls’ face looked like they were at peace. No! This little girl wasn’t dead he reminded himself, but in the very back of his mind, his thoughts added a soft yet. 

Akio shook his head and looked at Panther in the clearing; he was busy gathering the bodies to seal them away for travel. It was Panther’s first ANBU mission and unfortunately, it was a sort of hazing that the new recruits went through on their first mission; carrying the dead bodies and sealing them away. Even though this particular ANBU was very young, no one wanted to single him out and treat him differently because he was a prodigy. 

“I’ll head back with princess. I'll see you guys back at the Hokage tower. You two will have to get off me, i won't have enough chakra for all four of us to get back.” Bear said turning towards the village as the ninken climbed back onto the branch. I better make it in time, he told himself as he used his body flicker technique - the fastest way of travelling.

As soon as Bear reappeared from his first body flicker with the pink haired girl, she shrieked from the pain of being jolted around and struggled to free herself from his hold. Bear instinctively tightened his grip on her and felt her stiffen as she cried softly, pleading him to end her agony. His heart sank he realized he was hurting her. His grip on the child loosened enough to not put pressure on her body and she stopped struggling against him. 

“Princess, I’m really sorry but this is the quickest way to get you to a hospital. If I don't get you there soon…” Bear trailed off, not wanting to think of what would happen if they didn't get there in time. 

“I… I c-can’t. Just l-leave me here… please” the girl quietly implored him, still feeling the rawness of her throat every time she spoke or involuntarily screamed. 

Bear looked down at her pained expression; the last time he had seen someone in so much pain had been during the third shinobi war when he was still a child. One of his teammates had gotten his leg cut off from a wind jutsu and had lost too much blood yet they were 3 days run away from the nearest encampment. Bear had struggled to carry the injured man and was a few hours away from camp when he felt his teammate go limp. He instantly knew they had not made it in time. Bear had cursed himself for being so weak and vowed to get stronger and faster so he would never arrive late when a comrade was injured. 

Bear refused to let the pink haired child die, because unlike his teammate, she didn't choose to be in a fight to the death, she didn't voluntarily risk her life for the sake of the village. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, it wasn't her fault. 

He cleared his throat after he reminded himself that he would not - could not - let her down. “That's not going to happen. I won't let you die.”

The girl took a few breaths and opened her eyes to look at him. His voice had changed from being reassuring and comforting to something much more serious. She believed he would be able to save her somehow, but she wasn't stupid enough to think it wouldn't hurt. 

Bear saw her eyes open and saw her beautiful green eyes glistening and looking straight at him. She held so much hope in her gaze; he couldn't help but smile down at her. Knowing she couldn't see his smile, he told her “I'm going to do the same technique as before, but quicker. You'll most likely be in pain the entire time, but it's the fastest way back to Konoha. We should be there in a few hours at most. I’m so sorry but this is the best chance you have.” 

Her eyes widened in realization and her gaze clouded over as she stared into her saviour’s eyes. She had never seen someone with red eyes before; maybe she was starting to hallucinate with everything she'd been through today. Her eyes grew heavy as they closed shut and she drifted off into unconsciousness. 

Bear relaxed when he felt the girl enter the genjutsu. He didn't know if it would hold, seeing as the first sign of pain outside the genjutsu could release it, but it was worth a shot if she could have a slight reprieve.

He took note of his remaining chakra and estimated that with a soldier pill he would either reach the hospital and collapse or collapse just outside the village. Oh how he hoped it would be the former. Taking a deep breath he took a soldier pill and took off into the forest. 

Again, after one body flicker, the young girl screamed in agony pushing away from the ANBU member. Well that genjutsu was a waste of chakra. If he used a stronger genjutsu, he wouldn't make it to the village, which left only one option; let the girl suffer through the pain. Bear bit his lip in frustration and resigned them both to their fates for the next few hours. 

“I’m so sorry princess.” he whispered while he held her tight enough to prevent her from falling but not too tight to hurt her and body flickered away. 

Throughout the forest Sakura’s screams could be heard as the ANBU member and the young girl travelled quickly towards Konoha. By the time Bear could see the red gates of the village, he quickly took note of his chakra levels and guessed he had enough for one long body flicker before he passed out. 

He glanced down at the girl in his arms and took note of her new injuries. She had bit through her lip from the torturous experience of body flickering as fire burned throughout her body. She was flushed - probably a fever or infection - and covered in blood, both dry and fresh. She was quietly crying as a few tears trailed down her face, how she could still have any fluids in her body was beyond Bear’s understanding. She hadn't stopped bleeding or crying since they started their journey 3 hours ago. 

He then took note of his own physical state. His cheeks were damp from his own tears - no one in their right mind would be able to witness a child in agony for so long without being affected. He thought of his cousin who was about the same age as this girl and could not for the life of him imagine his younger cousin surviving this ordeal. Bear shook his head to rid himself of his thoughts as he felt his hands cramping from holding onto the girl so tightly - he was sure he was causing her more pain but he couldn't loosen his grip even if he tried, his muscles were cramped in that position. 

Bear managed to push through his final body flicker as he landed into the reception area of the hospital. Black tendrils crept into his view but he willed them away, he wanted to make sure someone took care of the girl before he passed out. He noticed someone with a white lab coat approaching him which made the ANBU member smile softly. 

“She’s lost a lot of blood, her leg is destroyed and she probably has a lot more things wrong with her. Please take care of her.” Bear struggled to finish his sentence before he felt someone take the girl from his arms after which he gave into his body's demand for rest and promptly passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

He didn’t know why he felt the urge to go visit the little girl he had helped save the previous week, but it seemed to him like it was something he simply had to do. He had decided that he wouldn’t physically go inside the room since there was no way she could possibly know who he was, which would make things very awkward. She had only seen him with his mask on and he wasn’t sure she would remember anything that had happened that night. 

As he walked over to the receptionist at the front desk he had noticed that her cheeks were flushed bright red when she looked up to greet him. It was a common occurrence for the women and girls of the village to be smitten by him and his cousin, and to be quite honest, he felt overwhelmed by it all. He didn’t like being the centre of attention, and would rather be left alone; all he needed was a few close friends he could rely on.

“G-good morning! C-can I help you?” the woman stuttered shyly, blushing even brighter still. 

“I was just wondering if you could tell me a patient’s room number, she was brought in last week.” he started and noticed that the receptionist’s expression quickly turned to disappointment when she realized the young man was coming to visit a girl. Trying his hardest not to roll his eyes at the woman’s blatant jealousy he added: “she has pink hair and is around 5 or 6 years old.”

At this, the receptionist perked up and started scanning through her files. “Room 304, is she related to you!?” she asked while batting her eyelashes. This only served to annoy the shinobi and he quickly turned and walked away, towards the staircase. 

He reached the third floor and went down the left corridor, but slowed down when he neared her room. He wasn’t quite sure how he would check up on the pink haired girl; he might just have to wait until she fell asleep so he could sneak in to see how she was doing. He stopped a few meters away from room 304 and felt for the girl’s chakra. She seemed to be awake, evidenced by the chakra fluctuations that he felt, as if she was actively using it, periodically. He hoped she would go to sleep shortly because he felt pretty awkward standing around in the hallway - he thought that perhaps he could body flicker onto the roof and wait it out until she fell asleep. 

Maybe I should just come back a few hours later and try again, he thought. His 6 year old cousin usually took a nap in the middle of the day and since the two kids were about the same age, maybe he could convince his little cousin to come visit-

“Anbu-san you can come in if you want.” it took him a few moments to realize the small voice came from room 304. To say he was surprised would be an understatement - there was no way the child knew he was standing outside her room, right? 

He slowly walked the few steps left to room 304 and slowly opened the door. There she was, the pink haired girl sitting up in her hospital bed with what appeared to be a heavy book on her lap. He locked eyes with her and saw the gratitude in her eyes as a bright smile lit up her face. His heart stopped for a fraction of a second; he realized how worried he was about her safety as a weight lifted from his shoulders with her elated expression. He matched her smile with an equally exultant smile before sitting in the chair next to her bed, hoping he wasn’t overstepping any boundaries.

He took a deep breath and relaxed fully into his seat feeling more comfortable in the plastic chair than he had been in his home for the past week. 

_______________________

Sakura had been reading her last birthday present from her aunt - the book on chakra theory and exercises - when she felt a familiar chakra signature approaching her room. It was warm and gentle, it didn’t suffocate her like the blue eyed man who hurt her. Over the past week she had practiced what her aunt had started teaching her about sensing chakra. 

She had gotten paranoid from her recurring nightmares in which she witnessed her aunt and uncle die repeatedly at the hands of the tendril monster. However, the worst nightmares were the ones where the ANBU didn’t save her in time or when her aunt and uncle blamed her for their death and tried to kill her. The nightmares occured every time she went to sleep, leading to violent awakenings ending with horrifying screams and clawing at doctors or nurses if they had the misfortune of being in the vicinity. 

She lived in a constant state of panic for the first few days she was hospitalized and she hoped to find herself in that state ever again - she knew that her mind was playing tricks on her but she was powerless to do anything about it. Her mind couldn’t discern if she was still having a nightmare or if she was awake in her hospital room, they all blurred into one. Once in awhile, she would mistake a doctor for one of her assailants and struggle to get away from him, causing pain to radiate up from her shattered leg and shoot up her spine, causing her to go deeper into a crazed state until she would finally be given a needle that would knock her out. 

She had heard the doctors and nurses outside of her room saying something about paranoia and traumatic stress and made a note to find out what those words meant when she had the chance. The staff had started giving her more medication after the first few days which helped to dull her senses and forget her night terrors - she still woke up with a raw throat, but she was able to function somewhat normally when she wasn’t sleeping. She didn’t think she could go on with life in her current state, she felt so alone, defenseless and didn’t feel that she would be able to face the next day.

For the first five days of her hospitalization, she had spent most of her time asleep and the few hours per day that she was awake for were largely spent crying.. She had just lost two of the most precious people in the world to her and her parents were still out of town on business with her cousin. My cousin… she thought, my cousin just lost his parents because they had taken me out of town for my birthday. The guilt kept creeping into her being, prompting bouts of sadness deeper than she had ever felt. She tried as hard as she could to not feel like she was the cause of the deaths but a part of her kept nagging her, pounding into her the thought that it was all her fault. The pieces of her heart that she had given to her aunt and uncle had been thoroughly broken. On top of the guilt, she was in immense pain despite being heavily medicated. Sakura had to be very careful when moving around on the bed because the slightest movement would cause any number of her injuries to send out jolts of pain.

It was after her mind had wandered to the darkest places imaginable that she had started distracting herself with her reading. The only book that she had with her was her birthday present, and it had taken her one full day to build up the courage to open it up. Her book was covered in blood - her own and her aunt’s - and she spent the entire day petrified, unable to tear her eyes away from the mess. It was the first day she didn’t spent most of it asleep, though she wasn’t having nightmares, her eidetic memory made her remember all the vivid details of the murders.

After that day of visual torture, she started reading and spent more time awake than asleep. In the span of two days, she had read the book twice from front to back and yesterday she had started practicing a few chakra exercises. The first thing she did was practice what her aunt had taught her - sense other people’s chakra. Sakura had spent some time yesterday sensing when a chakra signature approached her door so she would know when a nurse of doctor would check up on her - it was a challenge she gave herself, seeing as everytime someone entered her room, she flinched involuntarily.

Today she had been practising her chakra sensing when she felt a familiar chakra approach her room. She instinctively felt safe and relaxed a little in her bed. She assumed it was just a coincidence and he was walking through the corridors to visit a friend when he slowed down as he neared her room. She waited a few minutes when he eventually stopped just shy of her door and built up her courage to say something.

When Sakura opened her mouth to say something, nothing came out as she realized she hadn’t spoken to anyone in several days. She reached for her glass of water on the bedside table and cleared her throat quietly. He was still standing outside her room which confused her to no end; was he coming to see her? She hadn’t had a visitor since she was admitted to the hospital and was ecstatic at the idea that she wouldn’t be alone for some time. Afraid that the anbu member would leave at any minute she blurted out “Anbu-san you can come in if you want.”

She waited a few moment with bated breath, hoping against all hopes the the shinobi was indeed coming to see her until his chakra signature came right up to her room. She couldn’t help but smile broadly, it was the first time all week that she had any real sense of safety. 

She saw the door open and finally got to see one of her saviors and he was not what Sakura expected at all. She thought only seasoned shinobi were in anbu, but this man - no, teenager - was one of the elite. He had dark, unkempt hair and the nicest eyes she had ever seen. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with a red and white clan symbol on it though Sakura didn’t know what clan it represented. 

When he locked eyes with her, he instantly smiled - the warmest and brightest smile Sakura had ever seen - which brought tears to her eyes. She finally felt as if she was strong enough to face tomorrow and everyday thereafter and as if she would be able to get past the death of her aunt and uncle. She watched him as he moved closer and sat down in the chair. She saw him let out a breath of relief as he sunk down lower into the chair and took in every aspect of the one who had made sure she survived her ordeal.

Sakura couldn’t stop looking at him, he looked relaxed and comfortable as if they had known each other their whole lives. She wasn’t sure why he came to see her, and asked him just that.

“To be honest, I’m not sure. It’s just something that’s been nagging at me ever since I brought you here last week.” he said while scratching the back of his head sheepishly “I just wanted to make sure you were doing ok.” 

Just the thought of him being concerned about her caused a warmth to spread throughout Sakura’s body and her emotions got the best of her and she started weeping.

____________________________

He was startled when the little girl started crying, and did the only thing any decent human being would do; he stood up and engulfed her in a hug while being mindful of her leg that was encased in a cast. He felt her stiffen momentarily, but was relieved when she grabbed onto his shirt and clung on. It felt so natural for him to hold her, to be there for her and comfort her even though he had only just met her a week ago.

“T-thank you… thank you so much…” the young girl sobbed. The amount of emotion in the few words she spoke tugged at his heart; life just wasn’t fair for some people, she should be enjoying her childhood not in mourning. 

He continued to hold her and whispered into her hair “That’s what knights in shining armor do. They save the princess.” he smiled as he finished speaking, finally realizing just how corny he sounded. He didn’t expect the girl to start shaking suddenly and he quickly backed away from her to look at her. The curious thing was that she was laughing now, and no longer crying.

“I have a name you know.” the pink haired girl teased. 

“Princess is pretty accurate. Or better yet, the cherry blossom princess. I think that suits you-” he cut himself off as he watched the child try her best to stifle her laughter. She had tears streaming down her face and her hands were covering her mouth while she laughed. 

“What’s so funny?” he asked her, poking her in the sides which served to only increase her giggling fit.

“That’s my name!” she exclaimed between bouts of laughter “My name’s Sakura. Haruno Sakura”

Both of them were laughing like idiots by this point; how unoriginal of her parents to name her Sakura when she had pink hair!

“Well my name is Uchiha Shisui.” he reciprocated when he had managed to stop laughing. It felt good to laugh finally, but the best feeling was that he was able to help Sakura relax and be a carefree child even if it was just for a moment. 

Sakura laid back down onto her bed with her book still open on her lap while Shisui sat down onto his chair. She looked emotionally exhausted and he didn’t want to be the reason to keep her awake, so he decided that maybe he should read her a bedtime story - since that’s what people did for children right?

“I can read you a bedtime story so you can go to sleep” Shisui started while grabbing the book on the pink haired child’s lap. “What story is this? Does the princess get saved by a handsome young knight?”

Sakura was thoroughly confused; if he wanted to read her a bedtime story, why was he taking that book, was he going to read-

“Meditation increases your spiritual energy capacity...” Shisui began dumbfoundedly. He looked at the cover of the book and read “Chakra theory and exercises”. What child in their right mind chose to read about chakra for fun aside from Itachi. “Why are you-”

Sakura couldn’t help but laugh at Shisui’s expression, he seemed shocked and utterly speechless. “It was a birthday present from my aunt. She gave it to me earlier that day when… everything… happened.” Talking about that day sobered Sakura up quickly and she reached for her book. Shisui held it out for her and as soon as it was within reach she grabbed it and held onto it like a lifeline.

“So that was your aunt and uncle?” Shisui inquired, feeling relieved that at least her parents had not been killed in front of her.

“...” Sakura couldn’t bring herself to say anything, so she simply nodded and kept her eyes downcast trying to shield herself from the pitying look Shisui was probably giving her. 

Shisui looked at the book she was holding dear and finally noticed the red splotches that littered the cover and pages. He didn’t know whose blood that was, but he had a few guesses and none of them reassured him. 

“How did you know I was standing in the hallway earlier?” he asked, mentally patting himself on the back for changing the subject so subtly.

Sakura looked up through her bangs and saw Shisui’s genuine curiosity “My aunt started teaching me how to sense chakra signatures. I only know three- actually just one now, or so I thought. I don’t know how I remember yours, it took me a few months to be able to remember my friend’s chakra. But I like your chakra, it makes me feel safe.” She beamed at him, rosy cheeks and trails of tears down her face.

“That’s pretty impressive for a kid. You remind me of my cousin, he was part of the team that saved you, I can try to bring him when I visit later this week.” He didn’t know what compelled him to say that but it felt right, until he saw her eyes widen with disbelief and stare at him with a gaping mouth. 

“You-you want to come see me again?” Sakura stuttered, not sure why he would be coming a second time when she clearly wasn’t his responsibility. 

Shisui looked at her and gave her a smile bright enough to throw away all possible doubts she could have that he wasn’t sincere. “Of course I want to come see you again, you must be pretty lonely at times. I’m sure your parents can’t come visit all day every day.” he didn’t even know if her parents were alive, this could have been the completely wrong thing to say, maybe he shouldn’t have-

“My parents are out of town. They should be back in a few weeks.” She stated quietly with a small smile.

“Well in that case, I’ll be by more often. Is there anything you want me to bring you? In case you finish your book.”

Sakura looked at him with awe and admiration; why was he offering to help her and bring her things when he just met her. “Ummm, I already read this book twice. I have a few books at home that you could bring me if you don’t mind.” She felt like she was asking too much from Shisui, but his smile just made her feel so at home, that she spoke without restraint.

“That’s not a problem princess. Now, how would you like to learn how to hide your chakra? It’s not too complicated, but with practice you may be able to hide it so well that people won’t be able to find you easily.”

________________________________

As Shisui left her room with a promise to be back the next day during visiting hours, Sakura felt her heartbreak lessen just a little bit. She still felt as if two parts of her heart were missing and that she would never be able to fully heal, but she had a bit of hope that things would get better. She had something new to practice during her stay, and a hopefully daily visitor who would talk to her about anything and everything. As her eyes began to shut, her mind reminded her that the tendril monster was still out in the world and could be back to hurt her, just like he had hurt her precious people.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect another chapter in a few days :)

Over the next week after Shisui’s first visit, the hospital staff began reducing the number of painkillers the pink haired child was being given in hopes that she would be released soon. They weren’t being heartless, they had an unusually high number of casualties and the little girl’s parents could take care of her at home seeing as nothing could be done about her leg, save for amputation. 

Sakura wasn’t able to get more than 2 straight hours of sleep at a time seeing as the nightmares were getting worse due to the decrease in medication. She would often see the two cloaked men kill her entire family while she was tied up to a tree and forced to watch and endure every agonizing scream coming from her mother, her father, her cousin, her aunt and her uncle. The worst nightmare was when the ANBU team never managed to rescue her in time and she was slowly tortured physically, mentally and emotionally by the blue-eyed man. He would slowly carve her skin off inch by inch, including her eyelids and throw her into a lake; at which point she would wake up crying and throat raw from screaming.

The doctors had to repair her vocal chords several times and eventually, they had to tie her down when she was sleeping for fear that the little girl would eventually manage to scratch her own eyes out. 

Shisui had been visiting Sakura every day for one full week when he entered her room and found her folded onto herself and crying. If he was being honest with himself, he was surprised that she hadn't broken down earlier considering everything she'd been through. He sat down on her hospital bed and pulled her gently into a hug, always being mindful of her leg. 

Her other injuries were healing nicely, though they would all leave deep scars on her body. The doctors spent an hour each day looking over her injuries and trying to mend her shattered leg. Unfortunately, they had told Sakura that her leg would never be 100% but she still hoped that she would at least be able to walk on it though she wasn't holding her breath. 

Sakura held onto Shisui, no longer able to put up a strong front. The nightmare she had the previous night was the most vivid nightmare she had had since being rescued. The smell of the grass underneath her, the sound of flesh tearing apart and the ringing screams of agony stayed with her even after she woke up. She had tried everything to stop her heart from pounding in her chest and the churning in her stomach but nothing helped. She had been living in her nightmare for an hour before she felt the familiar chakra approaching her room. At that point, her mind was playing tricks on her, yelling at her that a familiar chakra meant that the blue-eyed man was coming to get her and she froze while being hunched over herself, crying.

“P-please... make it s-stop.” She sobbed quietly, not sure what Shisui could do to help.

“What’s wrong Sakura-chan?” Shisui asked as his blood ran cold, only fearing the worst. He tried to hide the panic in his voice but failed miserably when all he could feel was Sakura’s trembling body. 

The little girl looked into Shisui’s eyes and he was taken aback by the sheer amount of terror and helplessness in her eyes. He had seen the same look during the third shinobi war on seasoned veterans as they realized that only death awaited them. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from hers as she spoke.

“I can’t stop the nightmare” She began softly “They won’t stop screaming, I want them to stop!” She quickly turned away from Shisui as her stomach churned, but began shrieking in pain when she moved her shattered leg. The pain set in and the young girl couldn’t tolerate it as she bawled her eyes out and failed at taking in deep breaths.

Shisui did the only thing he could think of when he panicked, he forced Sakura to look into his blood red eyes and put her under a genjutsu. She slumped instantly into his arms, and he took a few breaths to calm himself down. 

He prided himself on being an ANBU member, capable of leading his own squad and making life and death decisions every day. He always remained calm, always stayed level headed even when a teammate was near death, but for some reason, for this child, he panicked when she was the slightest bit distraught. 

Her eyes were the window to her soul and displayed every raw emotion and her vulnerability to the world. Shisui wanted to protect her from every evil in the world, and secretly hoped she would not become a shinobi in order to reduce her chances of being hurt, but he promised himself that he would help her get strong if she became a genin in several years. 

He had become quite close to Sakura over the past week; she was so very fond of all the stories he told her about his missions and anything else shinobi related, while he enjoyed any and all the stories she told him and was captivated by her ability to shift from a mature 6-year-old to a silly 6-year-old. She loved to talk about her aunt and uncle; it was clear the three had been very close, they were her shinobi parents, the only people to support her dream of following in their footsteps. 

He had learned a lot about the girl; most notably the fact that she only had one friend her own age, and got bullied constantly when she tried to make new ones. She had once tried to defend a young yellow haired boy her own age from other kids who had begun to throw rocks and hurl insults; only to have the young boy miraculously get away when she distracted the other kids by shifting their attention onto her. Shisui greatly admired Sakura’s desire to protect others even if they were strangers - it was something he strongly believed in - despite the fact that she was so small and unintimidating. 

Unfortunately, ever since the day she had stood up the boy, the other children made sure to bully her the most for trying to be a hero. Sakura almost stopped going to the park altogether; she only went when she was meeting her friend there to play. She spent most of her time at home either with her aunt and uncle when they weren’t on missions or reading the multitude of books at her disposal. 

When she had been brought to the hospital, the only book in her possession had been her aunt’s birthday present on chakra theory. Luckily for her, when Shisui had offered to bring her more books, he had found a book on her bed. The book, Poisonous Plants, was a birthday present from her uncle with a note that said he would start teaching her about poisons, so she should familiarize herself with the basics of poisons. 

She had cried the night Shisui had brought her the book, with the knowledge that her uncle would never be able to teach her what he had wanted to. She spent most of the time when Shisui wasn’t visiting her crying, mourning her aunt and uncle and trying to mend her broken heart.

_____________________________

Once Shisui calmed down after placing the child under a genjutsu, he went to search for her doctor to get an update on her condition. He had been informed that she would be discharged in a couple of weeks at the latest, since there was nothing they could do to heal her leg any further. 

He quickly headed into town to grab some snacks for Sakura and himself before he broke her out of the genjutsu. The pain would probably subside within the hour, and he would be there to break her out and serve as distraction to her earlier nightmare.

He was a few blocks away from the market when he left his cousin’s chakra nearby. Shisui quickly body flickered behind Itachi and tried to grab onto his arm. It was a game the two had been playing for years, as a way to test each other’s skills. They had to reach out and touch the other without getting caught; this would work on their ability to hide their chakra and their ability to sense chakra as well. In their 4 years of playing this game, the score was tied at 2-2, and it had been 2 years since the last point had been made.

Itachi easily stepped away from Shisui’s hand and turned around with a smirk.

“I sensed you before you body flickered, you’re not hiding your chakra very well.” Itachi stated as he took in his cousin’s appearance. Shisui looked stressed which was something that rarely ever happened.

“Definitely not my best attempt that’s for sure.” Shisui said as he scratched the back of his head with his hand and an obviously fake smile plastered on.

“What’s wrong?” 

“I panicked with Sakura this morning, I didn’t know what to do. She moved her leg and was in so much pain so I put her under a genjutsu. I was just so nervous.” Shisui explained as he continued walking towards the market, Itachi following alongside him. “Do you think you can come visit her with me today? I’d really like you to meet her, she reminds me so much of you.”

“Just because we both like reading books?” 

“You both read the same kind of books; theory about chakra and anything else that no normal person would read.” Shisui teased his cousin as he nudged him in the arm playfully. “There’s something else too, but I can’t quite put my finger on it, she can be so serious about life and she has such a big heart, always putting others before herself.” 

Itachi could hear the reverence for the young child in his cousin’s voice which pleased him. He was very surprised at how quickly Shisui had become close to the pink haired girl they had saved about a week ago, usually Shisui avoided close relationships for fear of being betrayed or losing someone important. 

Itachi still had a few more hours before his mother wanted to go shopping with him and his brother for new clothes which meant he could finally meet the injured child. He wouldn’t admit it to Shisui but he was very curious to see what was so special about this girl for Shisui to instantly take a liking to her and visit her for hours every day. 

“I can’t right now, I have to eat first” Itachi bluffed just to see Shisui’s reaction. The younger cousin was not disappointed when he glanced over and saw Shisui’s disgruntled expression. 

“No. We’re getting you food and bringing it to the hospital with us, I have to get back to her, I should break her out of the genjutsu. I’ll get enough food for the three of us, go to the hospital, I’ll meet you there.” With that Shisui body flickered away before Itachi could respond.

Itachi let out a quiet sigh and started to walk towards the hospital. This was a whole new side of Shisui he was going to have to get used to. It seems that his cousin had very little patience when it came to the pink haired girl so Itachi shouldn’t push him too much. Most people were under the impression that the prodigious Uchiha clan heir was incapable of showing any form of emotion, the truth was that he only felt comfortable enough around one person to be himself and show his true colours and that was Shisui. The two had gotten close over the past few years after they discovered that they both were fiercely loyal to their village. They trained together and, once Itachi was able to, they completed missions together. Itachi continued on his way to the hospital while holding down the smirk he was so tempted of letting the world see as he thought of his best friend.

 

___________________________

The last thing Sakura saw were Shisui’s teary blood red eyes spinning. As soon as she looked into his eyes, her world shifted and she was sitting in a field of white lilies. The sun was shining down on her while birds circled above and all she could feel was a warmth inside of her like she was finally at peace. She basked in the sun for a while, simply listening to nature around her and enjoying life. 

She didn’t know how long she just laid down on the grass, but it felt like hours had passed before she stood up. Her mind automatically went into panic mode at the fact that her leg didn’t hurt at all. Her heart began racing as a feeling of terror crept up through her body sending chills down her spine. At that moment, she could feel that something was terribly wrong and the world shifted away from flowers in the field to her hospital room. 

She looked around the room and saw Shisui walking towards her bed with food containers. She shifted her gaze to look him in the eyes and saw the familiar onyx coloured eyes she had grown used to seeing for the past week. His eyes held a warmth which immediately calmed her down and she felt safe - even the tendril monster wouldn’t be able to get to her with her knight in shining armour around. 

Sakura also felt a second familiar chakra signature in the hallway, coming towards her room. It was not as warm like Shisui’s; it was cool and sharp. While Shisui’s chakra seemed to engulf her, and form a protective cocoon, this other felt like a reassuring presence, like a gentle hand on your shoulder set there for reassurance, letting you know that you are not alone.

A young boy walked through the room door; he had long black hair tied in a low ponytail, onyx eyes and held himself proudly. She could tell this boy was confident and powerful just by his posture; she also saw a very brief flash of sympathy in his eyes but it was gone less than one second later. Sakura tried to find a hint of emotion in his eyes thereafter but couldn’t for the life of her, it was as if he blocked himself off from the world completely. 

“Princess, this is Itachi, the cousin I was telling you about. He was on my team when we saved you.” Shisui told the girl as he handed her one of the food containers. She accepted the food happily, took one bite of her fried rice and looked at the newcomer.

“Hi Itachi-san, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Sakura, Haruno Sakura.” She introduced herself with pride - she absolutely loved meeting new people, it was a chance for her to make a new friend. She had already doubled her friend count with the addition of Shisui; the thought of getting a third friend was thrilling. 

Itachi hummed in agreement; he was never much of a talker when meeting someone new, even if this child was close to his brother’s age. The first thing he had noticed when he walked through the door were bright emerald eyes and cotton candy pink hair. The two colours were such an oddly beautiful combination that he was frozen speechless until Shisui nudged him out of his daze.

Sakura continued eating her food in silence as she watched the two boys settle down with their own containers. Shisui sat down at the end of her bed with his legs crossed, facing her - like he usually did - and Itachi sat down on the plastic chair next to the bed while shooting curious glances at Shisui. Shisui was always mindful and sat next to her good leg in order to not accidentally jostle the shattered leg. She looked at her friend and could tell that he was itching to say something, but was hesitating. His eyes met hers and she silently implored him to say something and smiled brightly when he nodded his head while scratching the back of his head nervously.

“Umm... when we came in, there was a flare of chakra. What happened?” Shisui silently asked, genuinely curious as to how this child broke free of his genjutsu; granted it wasn’t a very powerful one, but a genjutsu cast by a sharingan nonetheless.

“I remember looking at your eyes, but they were red.” At this, Itachi focused his attention on her, ignoring his food. “Then I woke up in a field of white flowers, it was so peaceful. But when I stood up, my leg didn’t hurt. I shouldn’t have been able to stand up, so I panicked and woke up in this room. I guess I woke up from the dream.”

Shisui’s smile was so bright, Itachi couldn’t help but give a small smile. The younger boy felt inexplicable pride for the girl, being able to break out of the genjutsu without actively thinking about it. She was able to realize that something was wrong and subconsciously disrupt her chakra flow enough to break free. It may have just been a fluke, but it was still a remarkable feat for a child so young.

Shisui quickly went to sit down next to Sakura and engulfed her in a bear hug, causing the girl’s eyes to widen and blush furiously. He pulled away after several seconds and spoke as he brought his hand up to the top of her head “You’re amazing princess! I put you under a genjutsu to stop your nightmare and you broke free of it on your own!”. 

Shisui ruffled Sakura’s hair and noticed that the girl’s smile was the brightest it had ever been, with tears gathering in her eyes and she quickly brought both her hands up and put them on top of Shisui’s, holding his hand on top of her head. She sobbed quietly and guided Shisui’s hand to ruffle her hair some more, all the while feeling elated at the gesture.

“I’m sorry princess, I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Shisui exclaimed, quite unsure of what to do in this situation.

“I-I-It’s ok… you did nothing wrong, I just...it means so much to me. My aunt and uncle used to…” She trailed off with a watery smile and sniffling. 

Shisui understood that the simple gesture of ruffling her hair actually meant the world to her, so he continued to do so and pulled her in for another hug. It was clear to him that Sakura craved simple touches and hugs that her aunt and uncle could no longer give her. 

Itachi sat, feeling oddly like he was intruding on a special moment, and looked out the window while they finished up. He noticed Shisui turning his head in his direction and chanced a look at his cousin. The relief and adoration shone through Shisui, who had a few tears running down his cheek. Itachi felt a pang of jealousy at Shisui’s ease of expressing himself, not afraid to show weakness to himself and now this pink haired girl. His only thought was of his father’s stern reaction if he was to ever show any weakness and sighed sadly. 

_________________________

Itachi had left a few hours after getting to the hospital, claiming he had some shopping to do with his family, for which Shisui teased him and surprisingly, Sakura added in a few jabs, having felt that Itachi could be considered a friend. Itachi had sighed, stating that Shisui was a bad influence for her, but she just shot back a bright, mischievous smile which warmed Itachi’s heart.

Shisui stayed with Sakura for another hour before having to go on a short mission. He promised her that he would be back the next day and he would bring a book on genjutsu with him so she could have varied reading material.

He ruffled her hair one last time before leaving, at which she told him to be safe. He walked down the hall and saw her doctor walking towards him. He stopped to talk to the doctor to get an update on her situation.

“She’s doing a lot better, her injuries have all healed enough for her to be discharged next week, with the exception of her leg but there’s nothing we can do for that. I highly doubt she will ever be able to use the leg given the extent of the damage. The bones that shattered pierced her muscles and cartilage which is irreparable with our skillset. It may be best that we amputate the leg so she won’t be in constant pain.”

“No! I mean, I can talk to her about it, but I don’t think she would be alright with that.” Shisui stated, horrified that they could even think of cutting off his princess’ leg - she would never become a shinobi if she was missing a leg. 

“I mean no offense, but I think this would be a decision for her and her parents to make. Not an Uchiha that has nothing to do civilians.” The doctor stated as he left Shisui standing in the hallway.

Shisui took a moment to scold himself for taking charge of the girl when she still had parents - parents that were out of town and had no idea what had happened to their daughter. He hoped her parents would be arriving soon, but the way Sakura had spoken, they would only arrive in two weeks time at the earliest, which meant that she would be discharged before they returned home. 

He tried his best to prepare for his mission and not get worried about Sakura. It was his first time leaving the village since he had saved her, and he didn’t like it - he didn’t like leaving her alone - so he made his way to the Uchiha leader’s house before leaving for his mission. He knocked on the door and a beautiful woman answered with a warm smile on her face.

“Shisui-kun, how nice of you to stop by. Did you want to join us for dinner?” 

“I can’t today aunt Mikoto, I have to speak to Itachi before I leave for my mission, is he in?”

“He should be out in the yard training. Tell him to be at the table in 10 minutes and to make sure Sasuke is all cleaned up!” The Uchiha matriarch told him as he headed to the yard where he and Itachi spent a lot of their time training together.

He spotted Itachi trying to meditate with Sasuke in the middle of the open field; only Sasuke was fidgeting constantly, not used to sitting still for more than 5 minutes. Shisui stopped and made sure his chakra was completely masked before he put his plan into action. He created a shadow clone and sent him slowly walking towards Itachi, with its chakra not completely masked. When the clone was a quarter of the way to Itachi, Shisui body flickered in front of his cousin and reached out to poke his forehead - something Itachi always did to Sasuke - in order to take the lead in their game. 

Itachi disappeared from in front of him, so Shisui did the next best thing and dropped flat to the ground and turned onto his back in time to see Itachi’s hand above him. Shisui snickered as he looked at Itachi in the eyes and congratulated him on sensing him. 

“Nii-san, you’re done meditating?!” Sasuke exclaimed as he climbed onto Itachi’s back.

“For now, yes, seeing as Shisui interrupted me” Itachi mock scolded as he stood up and held onto Sasuke’s legs. 

“Your mother said to be in the house in 10 minutes and to make sure Sasuke gets washed up. Also… if it’s not too much to ask for, Itachi, can you check up on Sakura until I come back?” Shisui asked shyly. Itachi looked at his cousin with one eyebrow slightly raised - a clear sign of utter confusion for Itachi. 

“Aren’t you coming back in less than 24 hours?”

“Yeah, but I’d feel a lot better if I knew… if I know you would check in on her. I-I just… I just worry about her being alone.” Shisui stammered out but noticed the smirk that made its way onto his cousin’s face.

“I’ll go see her tonight and tomorrow morning.” Itachi reassured Shisui.

“Who are you going to go see?” Sasuke chimed in, his curiosity piqued. 

“She’s a young girl who’s in the hospital and can’t go home yet.” Shisui informed his younger cousin.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She was hurt, but she’s getting better, the doctors are helping her. She should be good to go home next week.” Shisui informed his cousins with an ear to ear grin.

They reached the back door and Itachi kneeled down to let Sasuke get off his back. Sasuke stood in front of his brother, looking at the floor and kicking the ground with his feet shyly. He looked up into his brother’s eyes and said “Can I go see her with you nii-san?” wanting to stick by his brother’s side at all times.

Itachi brought up his hand and poked Sasuke’s forehead “I’m sorry Sasuke, maybe next time. I promised your mother you would be in bed earlier tonight.”

Sasuke rubbed his forehead and scowled at his brother. “You always say that.” He turned around and ran into the house to go wash up before the meal. 

Itachi straightened up and watched Sasuke leave with a twinge of guilt. He didn’t like denying Sasuke anything, but he always did it with Sasuke’s best interest in mind. If Itachi brought Sasuke to meet Sakura, he would always want to go to the hospital and his father would not approve of Sasuke having non Uchiha friends, especially not a civilian. 

“I’ll be leaving now, thanks again Tachi-chan.” Shisui said happily as he slapped Itachi back before body flickering away.

Itachi’s eyebrow was twitching at the name Shisui had called him. A few years ago, Shisui had begun calling him ‘Tachi-chan’ to get a rise out of him; at first Itachi had ignored it and pretended it didn’t bother him. Shisui kept calling him that and eventually, Itachi’s eyebrow developed an automatic twitch every time he heard that name.

_______________________

Sakura had finished reading her book about poisons and was getting ready to reread the theory on chakra when she felt Itachi nearing her room. She waited, and smiled when he stopped just before her door and knocked.

“You can come in Itachi-san”

Itachi slowly opened the door and walked into the room. He looked incredibly unsure of what to do once inside and Sakura had to stifle her laughter for fear of making him even more uncomfortable. He looked around the room, frequently stopping his gaze out the window.

“I-I was going to read one of my books again. I don’t know all the words, there are some pretty difficult one. D-do you think you could help me with them?” She asked quietly, hoping to make him more comfortable. She glanced at him and saw that he was looking at her with the smallest hint of a smile on his face, which helped Sakura relax. 

Itachi hummed in agreement and took a seat on the plastic chair that remained beside the girl’s bed. She opened her book and began flipping through the pages, searching for a specific chapter she was having some difficulties with the other day. 

For the next few hours, Sakura read through her book and occasionally asked Itachi to help with the pronunciation and definition of certain words. At first, Itachi stayed sitting in the chair, but after a while Sakura insisted he sit on her bed to make it easier.

Itachi was very hesitant, seeing as he never got close enough to anyone aside from Sasuke, his mother and Shisui for physical contact, but once he sat on the bed, Sakura made sure to not brush up against him. She seemed to respect his silent request for personal space which he appreciated very much. 

After a few hours of reading, Sakura started drifting off to sleep while reading about a chakra control exercise involving a leaf. Itachi sat back and watched the child’s eyes shut more and more until her breathing finally evened out. He slowly reached out and moved the book from her lap, saving her place with her bookmark in the shape of the village insignia. He placed the book on her bed, making sure it stayed within reach so she could grab when she wanted to continue reading it. Before leaving, he glanced back at Sakura and felt bad at her uncomfortable position; she had to either sleep sitting up or read laying down since she couldn’t move her leg whenever she wanted. He reached out and pulled the blankets up to better cover her and keep her warm while she slept, then went home, all the while thinking understanding how Shisui managed to get so close to the girl during the past week.

_________________________________

Shisui finished his mission and quickly ran back to the village as if the devil was chasing him. He trusted Itachi to check up on Sakura, but he still wanted to see her and make sure everything was alright. He felt very silly worrying about her; as he was gone for less than 24 hours, but he couldn’t help it, she was just too precious to him. 

He had made the eight-hour trek back to the village in five hours and went directly to the hospital, excited to see his princess. He told himself he would check up on her, stay for an hour then go home to sleep; seeing as he’d only had two hours of sleep in the past 35 hours. It was ten in the morning, Itachi would have stopped by to see Sakura two hours ago when visiting hours would have started.

Shisui quickly made his way to Sakura’s hospital room, a route he could now do with his eyes closed if he wanted to and entered. He was not expecting to see Itachi sitting with Sakura and talking with her. Sure, Itachi was capable of talking, but he never voluntarily spoke with another human being for more than one sentence. The strangest thing of all was that Sakura was making up a story on the spot and Itachi gave his input to participate in the creative process. Shisui was flabbergasted, his whole world had been turned upside down in the matter of seconds. His eyes bled red to release the genjutsu - this was the only explanation as to why Itachi was acting the way he was - but nothing happened.

Sakura and Itachi had stopped discussing the possibilities of animals developing intricate chakra networks more advanced than humans and subsequently gaining control of the world to look at Shisui’s shocked expression. Sakura burst out laughing while Itachi smirked, laughing at their friend’s expense.

“What… what… why… how did… what the hell is going on here?” Shisui stammered out, not quite sure what he wanted to ask them, but determined to find out if this was actually a genjutsu that could not be dispelled by the sharingan.

“Whatever do you mean dear cousin?” Itachi teased Shisui. The latter sharply turned his head towards Itachi, bewildered expression fixed on his face. 

“I’m sorry Shisui-san. I couldn’t help it.” Sakura managed to say between her fits of giggles, which only served to confused Shisui even more.

“It was Sakura’s idea to pull a prank on you, she claims it would be a nice welcome home surprise for you.” Itachi explained, not fully wanting to tell his cousin that he actually enjoyed going along with Sakura’s plan. He had never really pulled a fast one on anyone before and the enjoyment he got from it served to make him even more at ease with the two others currently in the room with him. 

Shisui silently walked over to Sakura’s bed and sat down next to her. He tried to keep a straight face, not wanting to encourage her for her prank, but the light dancing in her eyes was enough to crack even the most stoic Uchiha; Shisui grinned silly before ruffling Sakura’s hair. Her plan was actually pretty unbelievable when he stopped to think about it. She had managed to get Itachi of all people to go along with a prank - he still couldn’t believe Itachi had done something so out of character, no one would ever believe him if he ever tried to tell the story.

Itachi made his way to the other side of Sakura’s bed and leaned - he actually leaned - on the bed while Shisui kept messing up Sakura’s hair as she laughed with glee. Itachi’s hand twitched, he was tempted to ruffle Sakura’s hair, she truly was the easiest child to take a liking to. She was remarkably mature for a six year old, and could easily read the people around her. He had noticed her leaning towards him when he was helping her with her reading, but she always caught herself before she would touch him and created more space between them. 

Before leaving, Shisui took out a scroll and unsealed a book he had bought during his mission. He gave Sakura a book on medical ninjutsu, stating that he couldn’t find any book on genjutsu, so he got her a different book that also required excellent chakra control. He knew she was a natural just by the fact that she was already able to sense another person’s chakra fairly well. She was a bit confused at first, but accepted the book nonetheless; it was a new subject she could spend her waking hours devouring.

 

Two days after Shisui returned from his mission, he and Itachi were called to the Hokage tower along with Shiranui Genma and Hatake Kakashi for an ANBU mission. The first thought Shisui had when he heard about the mission was Sakura; he would be away from the village for 2 weeks. The team was to meet at the gates in 4 hours, which left him next to no time to figure out what he could do for the girl. If memory served him right, she was to be discharged from the hospital within the week and her parents weren’t back from their business trip, which meant that she would have no way of getting home.

Shisui went home to pack for his extended mission, and arrived at the hospital 45 minutes after leaving the Hokage tower; 3 hours and 15 minutes left before departure. He went to see Sakura’s doctor who was obviously occupied with another patient for an entire hour. Shisui tried to reel in his irritation when he saw the doctor leave the patient’s room with a grin on his face. It didn’t help that Shisui saw a young woman adjusting her skirt with flushed cheeks. He body flickered in front of the doctor, adamant that he would get his attention for Sakura’s sake.

“Doctor,” he started “I was wondering if it would be possible for me to bring Sakura home today.”

“You are not one of her parents, so I cannot simply discharge her without their permission” the doctor stated blatantly.

“Her parents are still out of the village and won’t return for another couple of weeks. I am the one taking care of her, but-”

“Hospital regulations, I cannot discharge a patient without parental care. Definitely not to a child” The doctor spat out sharply before he turned to walk the other direction.

Shisui’s anger was reaching his tipping point due to the blatant rejection and his inability to help Sakura. He took a deep breath and activated his mangekyou sharingan and focused on the doctor who was walking away quickly.

“You will release Sakura into my charge right this moment.” Shisui nearly growled out.

The doctor stopped in his tracks and finally looked at Shisui and said “I will sign the discharge papers and bring them to her room immediately.”

Shisui let the smirk on his face grow as he walked towards Sakura’s room, feeling a bit silly that he had to resort to his visual prowess for such a small task, but he didn’t have time to argue, he had to be at the front gates in just under two hours.

He felt for Sakura’s chakra and smiled when he felt it was relaxed; it didn’t happen often but once in awhile she wasn’t scared out of her mind due to her nightmares. He walked through the door and felt a strange warmth when he saw her ridiculously big smile aimed at him. 

“Shisui-san!” Sakura exclaimed “Thank you so much for the book, I love it!”

Shisui simply walked up to his princess and ruffled her hair as he sat down on her bed. He faced her and studied her face; she had small bags under her eyes - they were just barely noticeable if you stood close to her, but still there - which was not good for a child her age. He was saddened that he was not able to help her through her nightmares during the night, but relished in the fact that he would be there for her after his mission.

“Princess, I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just come right out and say it ok?” At this, Sakura gave him a curious yet worried look. Dammit, he didn’t pick the right words, he should have given it more thought as to how to word everything. “It’s just that… well, your parents aren’t back yet, and probably won’t be back for a couple of weeks, right?” he asked the girl. She nodded slowly which prompted him to continue. He took a deep breath and rushed his next sentence “The doctor said you would be discharged within the week and I won’t be here because I have a mission, but I can bring you home today- right now if you’re ready to go.”

Sakura stared at him for what felt like an eternity before she shyly looked down at her leg and gave a light nod. She looked up at Shisui with a small smile, teary eyes and choked out “I’d like that but...but what about my leg? Won’t it hurt if I move it? I can’t… I can’t even walk on it.”

“We’ll figure it out. We’ll make it work, trust me.” Shisui assured the girl, determined to cause her the least amount of pain possible, but aware of the fact that it would be an unpleasant trip home for her. 

After the doctor had Shisui sign the discharge papers, and had given Sakura crutches along with pain killers, the Uchiha and pink haired child attempted the walk back to Sakura’s house. At first, Shisui tried to carry her bridal style but that was quickly shot down when he touched her leg and she whimpered in pain. The only reasonable way of carrying her was to hold her close to his chest, and her chin resting on his shoulder. 

The walk was slow going, and Shisui resigned his fate that he would be late to meet his team at the gates - their captain was going to be at least an hour late anyways, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Sakura kept quiet on the way home, trying her best to ease the pain in her leg, but Shisui felt every twitch and every wince the child made along the way. He talked to her about everything and nothing to try to distract her, and even managed to make her laugh a few times; mostly when he pretended to speak like Itachi - well more like a robot than Itachi but it worked. 

The two arrived at Sakura’s house when Shisui was an hour and fifteen minutes late for meeting his team at the gates, but he didn’t bat an eye; he was just so happy that Sakura was finally home. The house was two storeys tall and fairly large which helped Shisui make the decision that Sakura would have to be set up on the first floor so she could have access to the kitchen.

He went to her room and grabbed her mattress, blankets, pillows and the stuffed wolf that was laying on her bed and brought it downstairs. He set up her bed between the bathroom and the kitchen - basically in the hallway - and helped her in it. He brought her crutches over and at her insistence he left to meet his team, all the while reassuring him that she would be alright; she could crawl to the bathroom and the kitchen if needed. He did take out all the food in the cupboards and placed them on the ground so she wouldn’t have to throw things to knock food to the ground. 

He reluctantly left Sakura’s house after he made sure she had access to every possible thing she could want or need for the next four weeks, in the event that his mission ran longer than expected. He made his way to the front gates of the village and noticed that his captain was there; which Shisui was already expecting, seeing as he was two and a half hours late. 

“Goddammit Shisui! What the fuck took you so long, even Kakashi beat you here.” Genma blurted out when Shisui body flickered next to him. 

“Well you see,” Shisui started, “I rescued a princess from her prison, then I had to escort her back to her humble abode and ensure she was safe from the monsters and dragons.” When he finished, Shisui glanced at Itachi and could visibly see his cousin fighting the smirk that threatened to creep onto his face. 

“That’s… that’s even less believable than Kakashi’s excuses. You expect us to believe you saved a princess in the village? I know your nickname is shunshin no Shisui, but… seriously? Next time you should think of a more believable lie” Genma said incredulously as all four ANBU members left the village.


	5. Chapter 5

It was the middle of the night when the four ANBU members returned from their two week long mission.  Fortunately, the injuries sustained during the mission were not critical, in fact they were more mentally distraught than physically injured.  The mission they had been sent on was to stop a child sex trafficking ring set up by a group of missing nins. They managed to destroy one of their bases but they also discovered that there were approximately 3 more throughout Fire country.  The youngest children they had found were Sakura and Sasuke’s age, to which Shisui and Itachi felt sick to their stomachs. The four ANBU had spent two days travelling, four days setting up their ambush, two days executing it, and four more days rescuing the children and bringing them to a refuge.  The run back had been long seeing as they were all exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally.

As soon as they arrived in Konoha, Shisui and Itachi split off from Kakashi and Genma, happy to finally get to sleep in a bed tonight.  Shisui had been wanting to see Sakura the moment he left the village, nervous about how she would take care of herself while he was gone since she couldn’t use her leg.  He motioned to Itachi to follow him, and they both ran on the rooftops to get to Sakura’s house.

They were walking up to her house when they heard Sakura screaming inside.  Shisui reacted instantly and climbed through the window in the kitchen he had left slightly open before leaving for his mission.  

Sakura was laying on her mattress with the blankets thrown everywhere around her as she clawed at her neck to remove an invisible hand around her throat.  Her screams intensified as she thrashed around, unwillingly jostling her bandaged leg. Shisui shook Sakura’s shoulder to wake her up, but it didn’t work, she was completely ensnared in her nightmare.  The screaming changed to shrieking then sobbing as Shisui kept trying to wake her up without hurting her. 

Itachi stood by as he watched his cousin struggle and fail to wake the girl up.  His heart went out to his cousin, not envying the amount of worry that was evident in Shisui’s actions.  Itachi took a few steps towards Sakura, knelt down and nudged Shisui to get his attention. When Shisui looked at Itachi with his sharingan active, Itachi knew he had to step in.  He activated his own sharingan, got closer to Sakura and hoped that his plan was going to work. As soon as he forced open her eyelids, she choked in a huge breath of air and widened her eyes.  Itachi was relieved that he didn’t have to go through with his plan; he wasn’t looking forward to forcing a genjutsu on the child when she was having a nightmare, there was always the chance that the nightmare would carry through with the genjutsu and offer no relief.

Shisui rushed to hold Sakura and pet her hair, reassuring her that everything was alright and that she was safe.  This was the first time Shisui witnessed the girl having a nightmare, and now that he took the time to look at her, he noticed scratches on her face, neck and arms; most likely self-inflicted judging by what he just saw.

He felt Sakura shivering in his arms, so he stepped back to put the blankets back on her while Itachi retrieved her stuffed wolf that she had thrown across the room.  Shisui watched as Sakura loosened the bandages that were wrapped from her upper thigh to her ankle and let out a hiss of pain. She then carefully wrapped the bandages back very tightly which seemed to relieve some pain.  The two Uchiha tucked the girl back into bed while Shisui sat down next to her after which Sakura promptly snuggled up to him.

“Thank you … Shisui-san... Itachi-san.” She muttered as she drifted off to sleep.

Itachi had noticed the growing bags under her eyes but elected not to tell Shisui - he was certain Shisui had noticed with the amount of attention he had bestowed upon her.  The girl was severely lacking sleep due to her nightmares and it seemed like it was getting worse each night. The fact that she fell back asleep instantly attested to that fact.  

“Head home Tachi, I’ll stay here.” Shisui whispered gently not to wake up the sleeping kid.  

Itachi was torn on what to do.  He could go home, take a quick shower to wash off the buildup of dirt, sweat and blood that accumulated over the past few days, or he could stay with the two and make sure Shisui took care of himself because he was sure as all hell certain that Shisui would focus solely on Sakura. 

“I’m staying” was Itachi’s short reply.  Shisui glanced up at his cousin and gave him a small smile; he understood what Itachi was doing and he appreciated it.  

Itachi was the first to go take a shower.  When he came downstairs in a short sleeve shirt sporting the Uchiha emblem, he warmed at the sight of Sakura curled into Shisui’s side resting peacefully.  He finally noticed the shirt that the child was wearing; an oversized Uchiha long sleeved shirt - he assumed Shisui had given it to her at some point. He walked over to Shisui who was struggling to stay awake and said “I’ll keep her company”.  

Shisui was speechless and beaming with pride.  Itachi had accepted Sakura as someone precious.  

He carefully untangled himself from Sakura’s grasp and watched as Itachi sat next to Sakura.  To him, the sight of Itachi smiling softly and resting his hand on Sakura’s head was undoubtedly one of the best moments of his life.  

________________________

Sakura woke up feeling well rested for the first time since, well since her aunt and uncle were murdered.  She remembered waking up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and seeing Shisui and Itachi, but after falling asleep she had a peaceful, dreamless sleep.  She stretched her arms and hit something hard with her elbow.

“I think you woke him up, Princess.”  Shisui chuckled.

She opened her eyes and saw that she had inadvertently hit Itachi who had been sleeping next to her.  Turning her head, she noticed Shisui was on the other side of her.

“Did you put me under a genjutsu again Shisui-san?”  Sakura asked.

“No, why?”  Shisui asked, thoroughly confused.

“I slept pretty nicely.  I didn’t have a nightmare, so I thought you chased it away with your eyes again.” 

“No, I didn’t do any of that.  We just stayed with you the entire night to make sure you’d be alright” Shisui informed her.

Sakura dragged herself towards Shisui and hugged him fiercely at which he patted her head.  She then turned around and looked at Itachi, unsure if she should give him a hug as well. Itachi surprised her by smiling and giving a small nod.  She didn’t waste any time and hugged the stoic Uchiha. 

Shisui watched as Sakura hugged Itachi and noticed his cousin’s hand give a slight twitch, as if he was debating reciprocating the gesture.   He looked on as Itachi’s resolve to remain emotionless crumbled and he wrapped an arm around Sakura. 

Sakura snuggled into the hug even more and let out a breath, relieved that Itachi was hugging her back.  She loved easily - sometimes too easily - because not many people wanted to spend time with her. Children never wanted to play with her and she didn’t know why.  

She had a big heart and gave a part of it to the people who became precious to her, which had only been her family until Shisui and Itachi came into her life.  She still felt the heartache of losing her aunt and uncle, and she feared it would never go away. All she could do was love more people than the amount of pieces of her heart that were missing.  

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but I think Itachi needs to go home to his family.” 

Sakura pulled away from Itachi with a slight flush, happy to officially be accepted by the young boy.  She bid Itachi farewell as he left and turned her attention to Shisui who remained relaxed beside her. 

“Shouldn’t you be going home too?” she asked

“I can spare a bit more time before leaving.  I did miss you quite a bit Princess.” Shisui informed her.  “I was actually wondering how your leg is, it didn’t seem as bad as it was before I left.”  At this, Sakura slowly turned to grab her medical book to explain.

She was able to move around - albeit slowly - without being in crippling pain, which was a huge improvement since being released from the hospital.  She had poured over her new book with exceptional fervor and had been enraptured by the section that detailed methods with and without chakra that could be used to reduce pain.  She began wrapping her leg up with bandages on the first day of Shisui’s absence and was able to crawl around to get to the kitchen and bathroom. 

Seeing as her mattress was flat on the floor, it was extremely difficult for her to get up from the floor.  She had tried a few times but always instinctively using her shattered leg when she lost balance and was about to fall.  She stopped trying to stand up on the second day since she passed out from the pain whenever she put weight on her leg.

The pain was still agonizing, but it was more manageable even if she accidentally moved her leg around while crawling or dragging herself from room to room.

One problem Sakura had for the past two weeks was washing up.  She spent a few hours every few days doing her best to wash herself with a washcloth since she wasn’t able to use the bathtub.  It was the least favorite part of her day and she even contemplated not washing until her parents returned. She shot down that idea when she realized that her parents could take a few more weeks to arrive, but nonetheless, she kept hoping her parents would come back home soon so she could get a proper bath. 

She was only able to lessen the pain from a 10 to a 9.5 when she wrapped her leg tightly.  A little reprieve from the torture felt amazing and did wonders for her mental health. She wanted to try sending chakra to her leg as she had read that it could reduce the pain by blocking the nerve endings from transmitting pain signals to the brain, but she did not have enough chakra or knowledge on how to use it to attempt it.

The longer the nightmares plagued her, the more she lost sleep.  It was getting difficult trying to discern what was a nightmare and what was reality since she was constantly haunted by her deceased loved ones and the two missing nins.  One moment she would see her aunt sitting in her rocking chair in the living room, and the next moment her aunt would have a hole through her chest and be covered in blood. 

Sakura had spent many hours crying in her bed, terrified of shadows and hallucinations around her.  She knew her mental state was deteriorating the more she spent time alone, but she really had no one other than Shisui, Itachi, her parents and her cousin - all of whom were out of town.  

At least now she had Shisui and Itachi so she tried to put all of her negative thoughts and fears away, locking the metaphorical door to that section of her mind.  She would try to keep all the bad memories away and replace them with good ones and maybe one day, she would be able to sleep peacefully on her own.

“You’re pretty amazing you know that Sakura-chan?”  Shisui complimented. She truly did remind him of Itachi.  To Shisui, Sakura was a genius in more ways than one and had so much potential as a shinobi.  Unfortunately he didn’t think she could ever reach her full potential seeing as her leg would always be her weakness and hold her back.  

Shisui made breakfast for the girl; a simple meal of crepes, chocolate syrup and fruit.  It was the first home cooked meal Sakura had eaten since her birthday and it was marvelous.  The energy she exerted crawling around her house left her constantly hungry and the food within her reach wasn’t filling enough to satisfy her hunger.  She stuffed her face and ended up eating more than Shisui which caused the boy to laugh hysterically - a pint sized girl out ate him, a growing teenage boy.

“I think we need to get you more food since you ate everything Princess!”  Shisui teased with a massive grin. She flushed a pink bright enough to rival her hair which only caused Shisui’s grin to widen. 

He bent down and picked her up gently, hugging her tightly.  Against her protests, he put her clothes in the laundry and cleaned up around the house - all the while maneuvering her around and making sure she was holding on to him.

Shisui was having the time of his life, simply enjoying the little things he never really paid attention to.  As Sakura’s laughter rang throughout the house and she kept playing with his hair, he felt like he never wanted moments like this to end.  With Sakura, he was not expected to kill anyone and didn’t have to deal with all the clan political bullshit. He was just Shisui. 

___________________________

The two had spent the day going around town together.  Sakura was sitting atop of Shisui’s shoulders smiling brightly, finally able to feel the sun on her skin.  It felt like she was walking through town with her father; he would frequently let her ride on his shoulders, allowing her to see more than what she was used to.  She felt a pang of worry for her parents and cousin since they had not returned yet, but she had gotten used to that feeling by now. 

Her parents were one week and four days late.  Every time she awoke in the house to a noise, she hoped it was her family returning, and at times she had hoped her aunt and uncle would be with them.  However, they still hadn’t arrived.

“Anywhere else you want to go before the sun sets?”  Shisui asked, interrupting her worried thoughts.

“No.  I think I’d like to go home and see if my parents are there.”  Sakura whispered softly.

Shisui felt a pang of worry at Sakura’s soft voice.  He could hear the heartbreak already starting at the possibility of losing the rest of her family.  He told her to hang on tight as he body flickered back to Sakura’s house. 

He put Sakura down on the kitchen counter after they had thoroughly checked the house to see if anyone had arrived - and by thoroughly checked, Sakura shouted for her parents for five minutes.  He put the food they had gotten at the market away and started cooking for the both of them, to which Sakura praised him for being so amazing. Shisui tried to pass it off as nothing but he wasn’t used to being praised and his cheeks flushed a light pink which prompted Sakura to start teasing him.  Her mood had lightened which was all Shisui could ask for. All he hoped was that he could distract her enough until her parents arrived. 

They ate as Shisui told her as much as he could about his latest mission.  He purposely kept out the part about the sex trafficking and the men he killed, and instead focused on the landscape and the run to their destination.  He had always loved the travelling part of his missions, where he could feel nature all around him - he especially loved running through the forest in Fire country.

Sakura was entranced by his travels.  After Shisui had finished talking, her eyes were downcast and she muttered something too low for Shisui to hear.

“What is it Princess?”  He inquired.

“Do you think I’ll ever be able to run through the trees like you?” She asked quietly, not sure what to expect as an answer.

“I’ll be honest with you Sakura-chan” hearing him say her name, and not calling her Princess immediately got her attention.  He rarely ever said her name - this was probably the second or third time since he had saved her - but it gave off an air of seriousness she was not used to associating with Shisui.  “I think you can become a shinobi, but it won’t be easy. You’ll have to find a way to either use your leg, or compensate for it. You probably shouldn’t tell anyone about your leg either, or else I’m sure a lot of people will try their hardest to keep you from your dream.  But remember that being a shinobi will be the most difficult thing you will do in your life, because your leg will always slow you down and be your weakness. But I believe in you” He finished with a heartwarming grin.

Sakura was speechless.  Shisui was being 100% honest with her, and he believed that she could still become a shinobi.  Her. A girl with a crippled leg. Tears gathered in her eyes but she did her best to stop them from falling as her grin widened.  She rubbed her eyes with her palms and spluttered a thank you to her best friend. Yes, that’s what he was. Her best friend.

“So we’ll be able to run through the trees together eventually?”  She asked

“Of course!”  Shisui told her while picking her up from her seat, “I’ll help you get better in any way I can.”

Sakura was crying tears of joy as he held her close.  The simple fact that he thought she was still able to become a shinobi and that he was willing to help made her made her day.  Until today, Sakura was sure there was no way she would be able to become a shinobi since she couldn’t use one of her leg. 

The front door opened and interrupted Sakura and Shisui’s moment.  Sakura’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat “Pa...pa?” she breathed out softly.  She wasn’t going to get her hopes up and expect her family to have arrived home. She half expected this to be another hallucination and she would witness everyone get killed again. 

“Sakura-chan? We’re home” Came her mother’s voice.  Sakura froze. No one ever spoke actual words in her hallucinations, there were only blood curdling screams and muffled voices.  She slowly realized that her parents were in fact home from their business trip. 

Sakura didn’t know if she should be excited that her family was home or sad because of the news she had to give them.  Her heart began beating faster by the second, wanting to avoid the confrontation with her parents and cousin.

“Sakura-chan, who is that?” her father inquired as he stepped into the kitchen.

Sakura was staring intently into Shisui’s eyes and they both saw the flash of fear that passed through each of their eyes.  They didn’t know how Sakura’s parents would react to a teenage boy being in the house alone with Sakura. 

Sakura turned around to face her parents while staying in Shisui’s arms.  “Mama, Papa, Takeshi-kun!” She exclaimed when she saw them. Shisui moved closer to her father and handed the little girl to the man.

Shisui stood back and watched the girl’s father hug and kiss her fiercely; he could see the relief in his eyes now that she was no longer in Shisui’s arms.  Sakura’s mother stood to the side and patted the girl’s head affectionately while holding the other child’s hand - Takeshi’s, Shisui deduced. 

Takeshi appeared to be slightly older than Itachi, but younger than himself and was standing to the side, looking around the house as if searching for someone.  It dawned on Shisui that this must be Sakura’s cousin; the one who was unknowingly an orphan now.

“Papa… mama… this is Shisui” Sakura stated as she pointed to the teenager.  “He’s been helping me these past few weeks because…” She didn’t know how she was supposed to explain what had happened on her birthday to her remaining family.  Luckily - or unluckily, depending on which way you look at it - Takeshi interjected.

“Where’s mother and father?”

Sakura looked over at Takeshi, tears falling freely down her cheeks as she put her hand on the young boy’s head.  “They… they were. We were attacked.” Sakura hesitated and hoped that she didn’t have to elaborate right now. She was an abnormally emotional girl and having just been reunited with her family, she didn’t think she would be coherent if she tried to explain everything.  She was a crying mess and the more she thought of having to talk about the events during her birthday, the more she lost it.

Haruno Kizashi was trying to comfort his little angel but to no avail; she was inconsolable and he wasn’t sure why.  It suddenly dawned on him as to why a stranger was in the house with Sakura when his brother and sister-in-law were not present.  His eyes widened in realization and he turned to Shisui who was looking at Sakura intently, fighting back tears of his own.

“Mebuki-chan, can you go with Takeshi and get his things from his house please?”  Kizashi asked quietly. Mebuki looked over to her husband when she heard his quiet plea and saw the pain in his eyes as he struggled to keep his composure in front of the two children.  She had only seen her husband react that way once before; when his mother had passed away. 

Mebuki didn’t hesitate to coax Takeshi into coming with her, trying to ease the child’s mind by asking him to stay over because Sakura had missed them all dearly.  Takeshi wasn’t an idiot; he suspected something had happened to his parents but wasn’t sure what exactly.

When Mebuki and Takeshi left the house to go next door to Takeshi’s home, Sakura asked to be held by Shisui which surprised Kizashi a great deal; she always wanted to be held by her father.  But Shisui had more experience manoeuvring the girl and her injured leg, so he placed Sakura gently onto the couch while the girl tried her best to hold back her sobs. She knew she was the one that had to break the news to her family and felt more confident that she would be capable of doing so if only her father was present.

It’s not that she didn’t love her mother, it’s just that her father was somewhat more understanding of her choice to become a shinobi seeing as his brother had become one.  Her mother had always opposed the idea of her little girl becoming a shinobi and laying her life on the line for her village; there were plenty of men that would be stronger than most women so it made sense that they protect the village and the women stayed home.  It didn't help that Sakura had always been a smaller than average child which only served to reinforce Mebuki’s thoughts that her child would not be cut out for a life of physical challenges. 

Sakura managed to stop crying enough to explain - without going into too much detail - the events of her birthday.  She had never seen her father cry before and it broke her heart to see a grown man torn apart by the loss of a loved one.  She mentally patted herself on the back for only giving a brief overview of what transpired - they were attacked by strong shinobi, and ANBU didn’t make it in time to save all three of them.  Sakura then explained Shisui’s role in everything from his team saving her, his caring for her when she was in the hospital and his near constant presence every day he was in the village.

Even though Kizashi sort of understood Sakura’s desire to become a shinobi, he disliked most shinobi he encountered; especially those from clans. It seemed that the bigger the clan, the more power hungry and arrogant the shinobi were so it came as a big surprise to him that Shisui had been so incredibly helpful to Sakura - she was a clanless child, he shouldn't have even bothered with her.

The fact that Shisui came from the Uchiha clan spoke highly of his character.  It was known throughout the village that the Uchiha were power hungry and thought of themselves before the village, which was the opposite of the previous and current Hokages’ ideals.  Kizashi had heard so much about the Will of Fire from his brother that he frowned upon every shinobi that didn’t possess it. When Sakura had first expressed interest in becoming a shinobi, he had asked her what her reasons were.  When she told him that she wanted to become a shinobi because her aunt and uncle were shinobi and that she respected them, Kizashi told her that it wasn’t a good enough reason. He told his little girl that he would not allow her to become a shinobi until she found her own reason.

At four years old, Sakura knew she wanted to become a shinobi, but she didn’t seem to know why.  It was the first summer where her parents allowed her to go to the park on her own, which turned out to be the first time she interacted with children her own age.  It turned out to be a life lesson for the girl. She had tried hard to make new friends, but to her absolute horror, they all started calling her names, making fun of her forehead and even started to throw rocks at her.  She shed many tears during that first summer and wallowed in self-pity, but it was also the summer she figured out why she wanted to become a shinobi.

_ One day she was walking home from the park after having been called every bad word she could think of when she spotted a young boy jogging through the village with a bright smile on his face.  She admired and envied his happiness and carefree attitude, since all she could do was cry and feel sorry for herself. However, she saw one of her bullies trip the boy and smile menacingly. Then there were four children about three years older than her surrounding the boy.  The bullies called the boy a monster and a freak, saying that no adult could ever love someone as stupid as him. _

_ Sakura dried her tears as best she could while trying to figure out how she could help the boy.  Something was boiling within her, forcing her to stomp towards the group of children with unprecedented rage.  The blond boy managed to squeeze past the bullies and ran towards Sakura, glancing back to see if the others were following him.  Sakura saw the moment two of the kids picked up fairly big rocks and threw them at the boy who was looking ahead, not noticing the incoming projectiles.  She instinctively tackled the blonde out of the way just as the rocks were about to hit him and received one deep cut on her arm and one big bruise on her leg from the stones.   _

_ “A-a-are you ok?  Why did you...?” the little boy stammered.   _

_ “I didn’t want you to get hurt, I just did the first thing that came to me.”  She explained as she held her bleeding arm. The boy kept looking at her like a second head had sprouted from her neck which unnerved her.  She heard the bullies walking towards them and stood up on her injured leg in front of the boy. _

_ “Would you look at that…? Ugly forehead girl is protecting the stupid monster.  Maybe we should teach them a lesson, boys.” The tallest of the bullies - presumably the leader - called out and his henchmen whooped in agreement all the while picking up any rocks or rotten fruit they found on the ground. _

_ “Run” Sakura whispered to the whiskered boy.  She glanced at him from the side to see that he wasn’t moving.  He kept looking at her with teary eyes and a broken smile. “Run!”  She yelled, effectively snapping the boy out of his reverie.  _

_ “B-but you-” he stumbled as he stood up _

_ “Just go!” Sakura gave him a small push to help him along, after which he ran which was all she could ask for.  She looked at the bullies and gave a pained smile with teary eyes. _

_ “You might just be stupider than the monster, idiot girl.”  The leader laughed all the while cracking his neck and warming up his throwing arm. _

_ Sakura stood tall, knowing they would still throw the rocks if she ran; at least this way she would see it coming and hopefully mitigate the damage.  She held fast and prepared for the incoming rocks, inadvertently shutting her eyes. She then felt a couple of people standing in front of her and heard the rocks fall to the ground some distance away from her.  She slowly opened her eyes only to see the green flak jacket worn by shinobi of the village and a light blue kimono shirt with the Haruno circle on the back. She glanced up and saw the familiar light blonde hair tied into a short ponytail that belonged to her uncle and the light pink-purple hair that undoubtedly belonged to her father. _

_ The children quickly ran away when the two adults arrived; they didn’t want to be brought to their parents for punishment.  Kizashi turned around and gathered his daughter up in his arms to bring her to the hospital for a quick checkup.  _

_ The two brothers had seen Sakura protect the blonde haired boy - the boy who had the kyuubi sealed inside of him, the village pariah.  Kizashi was all choked up, the small display from Sakura reassured him that she truly had what it took to become a shinobi. Her natural instincts to protect those who needed it despite the odds was proof enough that she had found her reason to become a shinobi even if she didn’t consciously realize it. _

_ He carried Sakura to the hospital, all the while a smile adorned her face, proud of herself for having helped the little boy. _

_ “Sakura-chan, you will be a fine shinobi” he whispered softly to the girl.  They locked eyes and Kizashi didn’t think her smile could get any brighter than at that moment.  He knew this meant the world to her and he was now confident that she truly wanted to become a shinobi for the right reasons. _   
  


“You’re a good kid, Shisui.  I can’t thank you enough for taking care of my little girl after all of this.”  Kizashi told the teen. Shisui reminded him of Sakura for the simple fact that he protects those who need it and he admired that greatly.  He hoped that Shisui would remain a part of her life and help her, now that his brother and sister-in-law were no longer alive. 

Shisui scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, he didn’t quite know what to say, he never really spoke to parents.  He opened his mouth to stammer something out, hopefully it wouldn’t sound too awkward, but Sakura’s mother and cousin entered the house - he was saved for the time being.  

“I’ve got to be getting back home.  Can I… Can I still…” Shisui trailed off, not quite sure how to ask permission to be around Sakura given their seven year age gap. 

“No.  Sakura is not a shinobi.  At least not yet. I refuse to let her be around your kind until I absolutely have to.  Now get out.” Mebuki seethed. Shisui was taken aback by the hostility of the woman. He was not expecting that at all.  He glanced at Sakura and saw the hope in her eyes. He gave her a reassuring nod, hoping that she understood that he would see her again.

After Shisui left, Kizashi and Sakura were left with the task of informing Mebuki and Takeshi of the events of Sakura’s birthday.  It was an emotional night for the four Harunos, where they spent reminiscing and comforting each other. They all went to sleep in the same bed but didn’t manage to fall asleep at all that night.

The next day was spent planning the funerals that would be held in two days.  Kizashi and Mebuki were supposed to leave in a week for their annual trip to Suna, but they managed to push it off for two weeks to stay in Konoha to grieve and help Takeshi move into their house.  They were going to have to sell Hiroki and Natsuko’s house, seeing as Takeshi was only twelve years old and couldn’t live on his own. 

Takeshi was taking his parents’ death quite well, which was a testament to the fact that he considered Kizashi and Mebuki more like parents.  It wasn’t that he didn’t love his parents, he loved them dearly, but he was rarely around them, and they had grown a bit distant over the past two years when Sakura had expressed a deeper interest in becoming a shinobi.  He grieved along with the rest of his family, and insisted that he helped with the funerals. When Sakura heard that all three of them were going to deal with the funeral, she asked to come along with them to which they agreed.  

On their way back from meeting the Hokage to go over the funeral arrangements, the Haruno family stopped by the busy market to buy some food to eat.  They didn’t have any fresh food left in the house, seeing as they had just arrived back from their trip, and Shisui used all the vegetables and meat to cook for himself and Sakura the previous night.  Kizashi suggested that everyone choose their favorite dish, as a way to celebrate the life of the two deceased. They had all agreed that it would be a great way to remember them by, and Sakura had chosen her aunt and uncle’s favorite dish instead of her own as her own way of remembering them.  

Sakura was being carried around by her father while looking for plums to finish off her uncle’s favorite dish when she felt Shisui’s chakra signature not far from them.  Sakura had taken the habit of constantly suppressing her chakra to the level of a civilian as a way to practice her chakra control. Shisui had also told her that it would slowly help her reserves get bigger.  She turned to her father and asked “Is it true that I can’t see Shisui until I start at the academy?”

Kizashi looked at Sakura and put his hand on her head.  “You know how your mother is with shinobi. She doesn’t trust them.  Not one bit. But Shisui is different, you can see him, just let me know ahead of time.  I’ll try to explain to your mother and make her understand.”

This was the reason that Sakura adored her father.  He tried his best to understand his daughter and didn’t want to prevent her from doing anything in her life.  He had tried his best to shield her from the dark side of shinobi life by entrusting her training with his brother and sister-in-law, and they had done a fantastic job up until their deaths.  

Sakura had done her research and knew that shinobi killed and stole and manipulated others for a living, but she chose to look at it a different way.  Shinobi protected others. Protected their village at all costs. Even at six years old, she believed that she would be ready to protect others no matter what the situation, no matter what the danger. 

“Shisui is less than a block away, do you think we could go see him to explain everything to him?” She asked.

Kizashi was slightly startled at how Sakura knew Shisui’s whereabouts, but remembered that Natsuko had taught his daughter how to sense chakra.  He responded by moving Sakura so she was sitting on top of his shoulders and told her to point the way. Sakura giggled and assumed the position by lightly grabbing onto her father’s hair, using it to guide him along the busy streets.  

She spotted Shisui sitting on the rooftop of a small restaurant reading a scroll - oh how she wished she could jump up onto the rooftop and surprise him.  She made her father stop near the restaurant and she flared her chakra, hoping he would notice her. Despite the fact that she was comfortable around Shisui, she didn’t like attracting attention to herself.  If Ino was in her stead, the girl most likely would have just shouted at Shisui to get his attention along with every other person in the vicinity.

Shisui looked down directly at Sakura once she flared her chakra and body flickered in front of the father-daughter duo, with a surprised yet relieved expression.

“Princess!” he exclaimed without thinking.  He didn’t know if her father was comfortable with the nickname he had given Sakura, but the expression of adoration on the older man’s face was indication enough for Shisui. 

Shisui instinctively reached out to grab Sakura but hesitated when he realized what he was doing.  Kizashi noticed this, helped Sakura get down from his shoulders and handed her to Shisui. She wasn’t an invalid, but it was a lot easier for her to move around town by being carried.  When they were at home, she used her crutches to slowly move through the house as long as her leg was tightly bandaged. She was getting better at using the crutches and sometimes attempted to take one step with her injured leg to increase her pain tolerance.

“Did you want to spend the afternoon with Sakura-chan by chance?  I know she would love to.” Kizashi asked Shisui. He was not a blind old fool, he knew that the two kids had gotten incredibly close in a very short amount of time, especially since Shisui had spent time with Sakura every day he was in the village.  Kizashi didn’t want to come in between this budding friendship, seeing as Sakura had a hard enough time making friends. 

“If it’s not a problem with you, sir.  Itachi and I were going to train together and I would love it if Sakura could come watch.” Shisui beamed.  He was trying his best to hide his excitement; Sakura was going to love seeing the two train and Shisui so wanted to teach her how to body flicker.

Kizashi told Sakura to be back home for supper and left to go deal with his wife’s obvious issue with Shisui - that was something he was not looking forward to, but he knew he had to for Sakura’s sake.  

Sakura watched as her father disappeared amongst the swarm of people walking through the streets and turned to Shisui, all giddy “Can I really watch you train with Itachi?  When are you starting?”

Shisui laughed at her antics and quick fire questions; he hadn’t seen her this excited before and it was absolutely adorable.  The way that her eyes sparkled and she kept fidgeting on his shoulders, shaking with unrestrained enthusiasm only served to pump Shisui up for his spar.  “I’m actually meeting Itachi at Training Ground 4 in 10 minutes, need anything before we head out?”

“Nope.”

“Then hold on tight Princess.”  As if knowing Sakura’s mind, he jumped onto the rooftops and ran across the village.

_______________________

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

By the time Shisui and Sakura arrived at Training Ground 4, Itachi was already there stretching.  This was the first time Sakura had stepped foot onto a training ground reserved for shinobi and she soaked in every broken tree branch, every dent in the training posts and all the charred grass that resulted from a fire jutsu and committed it to memory.  It was obvious that many shinobi trained here which only served to motivate her to pursue her dream. 

Itachi looked up with a small smile and sauntered over to the duo and said “Sakura, your ability to hide your chakra has gotten better.”  Shisui knelt down with a proud smile and Itachi lifted Sakura off his cousin’s shoulders in an uncharacteristically caring manner which did not go unnoticed by the older Uchiha.  Itachi froze when he was holding Sakura, having just realized his bold movement. Shisui was grinning like a madman trying his best to hold back his laughter but wasn’t successful.  Sakura joined in the laughter and thanked Itachi - for the compliment and for helping her off Shisui’s shoulders - as a light dusting of pink creeped onto his cheeks while laughter permeated through the training ground.  

He placed Sakura down at the base of a tree, a safe distance away from where his spar with Shisui would take place.  They had agreed that no ninjutsu was to be used, seeing as they wouldn’t have been able to ensure Sakura’s safety otherwise.  They stood two meters away from each other with their ANBU swords unsheathed when Shisui shouted “Princess, can you tell us when to begin?”

Sakura happily agreed and calmed her heart - she was going to witness a spar between two very powerful shinobi, something she never imagined she would witness until she herself became a shinobi.  She waited long enough for Shisui to look at her and shouted “Begin!”

She saw a small smile on Shisui’s face as soon as she shouted and knew she had given him the disadvantage at the beginning of the spar.  But not even one second later, the two boys had disappeared from the clearing. She looked around, hoping to see some movement but all she heard was metal on metal clashes all around her.  She couldn’t begin to comprehend their speed, one clash happened five meters from her, then one second later they seemed to be on the other side of the clearing, some four hundred meters away.  At times, if she concentrated on their chakra signature hard enough, she could feel them moving very quickly. She couldn’t follow their chakra all the time, but it helped her get a feel for where they were moving.  

Was this the normal speed of ANBU?  How in the world was it possible for the human body to move so fast?  Right then and there Sakura made herself a new goal; she wanted to one day be able to spar with Itachi and Shisui.

They suddenly appeared in the middle of the clearing; Shisui had a sardonic smile and Itachi’s lips quirked upwards ever so slightly.  The two remained in the clearing and kept attacking and dodging and parrying each other’s strikes. It was a beautiful dance, one that appeared perfectly choreographed to Sakura.

Shisui lunged in with his sword, aiming for Itachi’s right hip, but the latter easily moved out of the way upon activating his sharingan.

“I see you’re taking this seriously Tachi-kun” Shisui teased.

Sakura saw Itachi’s brow twitch in irritation and mentally stored that information - she could use the nickname in the future for her own diabolical plans.  His eyes narrowed and he disappeared from the clearing and a laughing Shisui. Her best friend had yet to activate his sharingan and she assumed it was all a ruse to rile up Itachi.  

She saw movement in the sky and saw Itachi seemingly flying through the air with ten kunai in his hands.  His red eyes were unmistakable even from this distance, as he threw two kunai in Shisui’s direction and the other eight in random directions.  Shisui moved out of the way only to end up in the path of another kunai - Sakura realized that Itachi had predicted Shisui’s movements and sent kunai in those locations; he had even thrown kunai to change the direction of previously thrown kunai.  

Shisui was finally forced to activate his sharingan when that last kunai grazed his arm.  Sakura just realised that they had sheathed their swords at some point during the spar - probably when they were disappearing every second, she presumed.  It was a mental exercise just trying to keep up with everything happening in this spar - or an all-out battle as Sakura believed it to be - the two were using swords and kunai and their fists and legs and moving faster than her eyes could see.  

The two were now engaged in a pure taijutsu battle which Sakura enjoyed immensely.  They had slowed down their movements so that Sakura could see them about 60% of the time, which was a huge improvement from about 5% when they had started the spar.  

To say that Sakura was mesmerized would be an understatement.  A few squirrels had come near her and even climbed onto her legs without her noticing.  One squirrel even managed to drop an acorn onto Sakura’s head without her reacting. 

During the spar, Sakura had struggled to stand up while leaning onto the tree. She had grown so used to the pain in her leg that it had dulled, so she sometimes liked to put just a bit of weight on it to feel the pain intensify.  She wasn't a masochist, she didn't enjoy the pain but it served as a reminder of what can happen in life and what she wanted to fight for to prevent from happening to others. She knew her pain tolerance had increased because she was able to put a bit more weight on her leg before the pain became intolerable.  It gave her hope that maybe in a few years she would be able to put most if not all of her weight on her leg and not collapse to the ground. 

The spar lasted a total of forty-three minutes during with Shisui and Itachi both struggled for dominance.  Both boys had gotten new bruises and a few minor cuts from the spar, however, Shisui was not quite as winded as Itachi.  Shisui was bent over, with his hands on his knees to catch his breath while Itachi had laid down on the ground to catch his breath.  

Sakura stood by the tree, itching to go join them, internally debating if she would be capable of walking over to them.  She was mentally trying to convince herself that she could make it, but a part of her thought of the damage that could be done if she took a misstep.  A loud voice in her head cheered her on, yelling in encouragement that she could reach them, she was a capable pre-shinobi. 

Sakura took a deep breath and steadied herself with one hand on the tree.  She counted to three and started walking/hopping towards her friends. She didn’t have her crutches so she did the best she could and barely put any weight on her injured leg when she took a step.  She knew she needed to put a bit of weight on her leg for balance, seeing as she always steadied herself with a wall when she was at home - she made a mental note to practice hopping around on one leg when she got home so she could move around more freely.  

Her heart raced with each step she took.  She was so focused on getting to Shisui and Itachi that she didn’t notice both of them looking at her.  She had walked fifty meters when she heard Itachi telling Shisui to let her do this on her own. The slight distraction caused her to put a bit more weight on her leg after which she collapsed to the ground, stopping her fall with her hands in a push up like stance.  Shisui was at her side in an instant and tried to help her up, but she shook her head, fighting back the tears and the intense pain in her leg. The voice in her head had stayed and kept cheering her on, motivating her to get back up and keep walking - and she did just that.

Sakura struggled to get up in a shaky one-legged squat and resumed her hopping - towards Itachi this time because Shisui would not leave her side, which was very distracting.

“Shisui, can you go wait with Itachi please?  I have to do this.” The determination in Sakura’s voice made Shisui’s eyes widen comically.  He had never heard Sakura so stern and determined before and it overjoyed him. He body flickered to stand beside Itachi and nodded for Sakura to keep going.

The little girl took a few moments to get in the zone before she resumed her self-appointed mission.  It took her just over fifteen minutes to reach the duo - she suspected they kept walking back every now and then, just so she would have a greater distance to travel, but she was alright with that - during which she stumbled a few times but never fell to the ground a second time.  

Shisui caught her with arms wide open when she collapsed from exertion - he estimated that she had hopped an astounding two hundred and fifty meters, definitely not an easy feat for a child.  Itachi and Shisui both had plenty of time to cool down from their spar so they focused their attention on Sakura’s sleepy explanation of all her favorite parts of the battle. The thing that stood out was when she told them that she could feel their chakra when they body flickered but couldn’t see them.  

“Can you teach me to use a sword?  And move fast? And dodge everything?  And throw kunai? And-”

“Slow down Princess, that’s a lot of things!”  Shisui laughed

Sakura, realized that she was probably asking too much of them.  Just because they had spent lots of time with her didn’t mean they would both want to train her.  Sure, Shisui had said he would help her out, but she knew that there were some things she had to learn on her own; she couldn’t just rely on them.  She started to apologize profusely when Itachi laid a hand on her head, abruptly cutting her off.

“What Shisui meant was that, we can start teaching you certain things but not all at once.”

“Yeah, you’re not even in the academy yet, you still have six years before you can become a genin.  We’ll be able to teach you plenty of things.” Shisui exclaimed, immediately cheering the little girl up.  Shisui helped Sakura stand up and knelt down to her level. “The first thing I’ll teach you today is the seal for the body flicker technique.  If you practice enough, you won’t need the seal. Now you have to promise me you won’t try this on your own at first, ok?” 

Sakura didn’t know what to say.  She looked at Shisui with wide eyes.  She had subconsciously stopped breathing, for fear of breaking the illusion but when Shisui gave her a reassuring smile, she sobered up and started crying tears of joy.  She jumped into his arms and kissed his cheek - the best way she knew how to express herself. 

Shisui flinched from the kiss but a second later, he was hugging her fiercely.  The last person to have given him a kiss on the cheek had been his mother before she died, and little did he know, it was something that was missing from his life.  He kept holding onto Sakura tightly and worked on regaining his composure as he gently placed a kiss on the top of her head. 

The hole in his heart left by the loss of his parents had begun to heal when he had met Sakura; she gave him the affection that his parents used to give him.  When his parents died, he had shut himself off from his emotions until he had saved the pink haired girl. He thought of her as his salvation, his saviour and the kiss on his cheek solidified his resolve to be by her side for as long as she let him.    

“Are you ready for the seal?” Shisui asked Sakura, managing to keep his voice steady. He felt her nod her head against his chest and he loosened his hold on her. He stood up and faced Sakura while forming the tiger seal with his right hand, which Sakura mimicked.  “There’s only one seal for this technique so the second part is how to properly channel your chakra throughout your body. It’s a D rank jutsu and most shinobi can use the body flicker to travel, but not many can use it successfully in combat. The trick to use it in combat is that you have to constantly focus your chakra through your entire body and you have to be able to control it very precisely.  You don’t have much chakra yet, Princess, so I don’t want you to practice this jutsu alright?” 

At Shisui’s explanation, Sakura just nodded her head.  She wasn’t saddened by fact that Shisui told her that she couldn’t practice it due to her low chakra reserves, instead she was determined to increase her chakra reserves so she could practice the jutsu in the future.  

She had read in her big book of chakra that meditation and pushing yourself to your physical limit would help increase the amount of chakra you have, but hadn’t been successful at meditating yet and she hadn’t even thought of trying to reach her physical limit due to her leg.  “Shisui, can you teach me how to meditate?” She asked demurely.

Shisui let out an embarrassed chuckle and scratched the back of his head.  He glanced at Itachi who had a very small smile dance across his face for a short moment - they both knew Itachi would be best to teach her about meditation.  

Itachi was actually glad that Sakura asked to be taught to meditate.  He wasn’t jealous that Shisui was teaching her a jutsu, it’s just that he wanted to help her too but didn’t know how.  He had felt guilty that he was inclined to teaching this girl something when he had his own brother he could teach, so he was struggling to find something he could teach both.  Luckily, he was already trying to teach Sasuke how to meditate so he didn’t feel guilty to teach Sakura something that he already taught Sasuke. 

“I can teach you to meditate since Shisui taught you the jutsu.”  Itachi reasoned. The look of relief that flashed over Shisui and the look of excitement on Sakura’s face were instantaneous.

_____________________________

Itachi spent a few hours going over meditation techniques with Sakura to make sure she had a few different ways she could try to meditate on her own then encouraged her to try it once.  He had spent several days trying to get Sasuke to sit down and meditate, so he assumed that Sakura would need several days if she were to try it on her own but to his astonishment, she had entered a meditative state just over twenty minutes into her first attempt.  

The two Uchiha had listened to Sakura’s breathing and felt the slight shift in her chakra that indicated a meditative state.  Shisui had immediately started quietly bragging about how amazing his Princess was and began comparing her to Sasuke - it seems that he had started a sibling rivalry, having unofficially adopted Sakura as his little sister.  Itachi tried his best to refrain from rolling his eyes at his cousin; as the thought of comparing Sasuke and Sakura seemed ridiculous. He would always put his brother’s best interest before anyone else’s, but Sakura was quickly becoming the second most important person in his life, which was not something anyone but Shisui could find out.  The simple fact that this girl was not an Uchiha would cause an uproar from the clan, and they were already annoying enough as it is. 

Being the clan heir, Itachi was forced to learn more about politics, or to be more precise, his clan’s ideals which he mostly disagreed with.  His main priority was the well being of the village and helping the children grow strong - which was kind of ironic, seeing as he was still only a child himself.  If he had his way, the Uchiha clan would be loyal to the village first and foremost, then to the clan itself. Unfortunately, the opposite was true.

Sakura broke out of her meditative state when a messenger appeared into the clearing, stating that the Hokage wanted to see Shisui.  Shisui reluctantly stretched, trying to delay his next mission, at least he hoped it was a mission and not a discussion regarding his clan.  The Hokage would usually summon either Shisui or Itachi - never both - for an update on the Uchiha clan’s status. It had been mentioned during the past few clan meetings that the Uchiha were dissatisfied with how the village treated them.  There had been tension between the clan and the village ever since the nine tails attack six years ago, and things had only gotten worse as time went on. 

Shisui rested his hand on Sakura’s head and said “I’ll be back shortly, wait for me and I’ll bring you home after ok?”

Sakura nodded slightly and turned to Itachi who in turn nodded at Shisui.  The older male left and Sakura asked Itachi if they could continue meditating to which he agreed.  The two sat down and leaned against a training post. Itachi waited to see if Sakura needed any guidance to enter a meditative state before starting his own meditation.  Not even five minutes after they sat down Sakura’s chakra shifted ever so slightly that had Itachi not been focused on it, he would not have noticed. He took a few minutes to listen to the sounds of the forest and animals around him and further relaxed onto the training post.  He calmed his breathing and cleared his mind and soon found himself meditating. 

_________________________

Shisui arrived back at the clearing an hour after he had left only to find Itachi and Sakura both meditating against a training post.  This only reinforced the fact that Sakura was similar to Itachi - not many people could tolerate meditating, let alone doing it for an extended period of time.  He slowly walked towards the two, knowing that Itachi would have sensed him already and decided to sneak up on Sakura. He wanted to get back at her for giving him the disadvantage earlier when sparring with Itachi.  He knew she had purposefully waited until he looked in her direction before telling them to begin. 

Shisui didn’t mask his chakra fully, he figured she was probably not able to sense chakra as well as him and Itachi, but he still wanted to make it difficult for her.  As he approached Itachi, he saw his cousin tense ever so slightly and crack open one of his eyes. Shisui tore his eyes away from Sakura for a moment to look at Itachi and smirked at him.  He turned back to look at Sakura and stopped dead in his tracks at what he saw. Sakura had her eyes wide open and was smiling at him like an idiot.

“You could still sense my chakra?!”  Shisui asked, thoroughly shocked. 

“I was meditating.”  Sakura stated as if that explained everything.  

“And what is that supposed to mean?”  Shisui questioned somewhat tensed.

“I can sense chakra better than normal when I meditate.”  Sakura hesitantly explained. She didn’t quite understand why Shisui was asking those questions and in all honesty, it scared her a bit.  Had she done something wrong? Why was he serious all of a sudden?

“Prove it,” Itachi cut in abruptly “tell me when you can’t sense my chakra anymore.”  At Sakura’s shaky nod, Itachi began masking more and more of his chakra until he was at about 25% and Sakura called out to him that she couldn’t sense it anymore.  “Can you break yourself out of meditation at will?” He asked the girl who responded by nervously nodding her head.

Sakura was on edge and felt herself nearing a breakdown but she kept her composure somehow and tried to enter a meditative state.  Her mind was frantic, scared that the two Uchiha would not want anything to do with her anymore if she didn’t manage to do what they told her to.  She wasn’t able to clear her mind when all she could focus on was trying to figure out what they wanted her to tell them. She hated it when others were mad at her for reasons she didn’t understand.  All she wanted was for Shisui and Itachi to be proud of her, and up until today, they had always been so positive towards her. This was the first negative emotion she had felt coming from both of them and it frightened her. 

She actually hoped that the tendril monster would appear, either confirming that she was having a nightmare, or to have Shisui and Itachi shift their focus from her to the missing nin.  Her heart began to beat much faster and she could feel her anxiety threatening to take over when she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. Her eyes shot open and she saw Shisui starring questioningly at her.

“What’s wrong Sakura-chan?”  He asked worriedly.

“I-I-I can’t m-meditate” she cried softly rubbing at her eyes. 

Shisui pulled her into a hug as she continued to sob.  Itachi was looking at the two with a furrowed brow, clearly not knowing any more than Shisui as to why the pink haired girl was breaking down suddenly.  

“W-w-what did I do wrong?”  She whispered.

Shisui was taken aback at her question; she had done nothing wrong, why would she think she did?  “What are you talking about, Princess? You did nothing wrong” he reassured her. 

“But y-you were both... almost calling me a l-liar.” She managed to blurt out.

“Sakura, we didn’t mean to sound like that, but it’s not normal to sense chakra better while meditating.  We’re just curious.” Itachi explained to Sakura.

Sakura wiped away her remaining tears now that she understood why they were questioning her ability.  She took a few moments to calm down and steadied her breath to begin meditating. While in her meditative state, she was able to focus on herself and the nature around her.  She rather liked meditating because she felt completely relaxed, and took the time to really feel her chakra coursing through her. She focused on her surroundings and zeroed in on Itachi’s chakra.  She waited until he began to mask more and more of his chakra until she couldn’t feel it anymore, at which point she broke out of her relaxed state and looked at Itachi for the results of his test.

“Did you break out of your meditation as soon as you stopped sensing my chakra?”  Itachi asked sharply. She nodded her head, still somewhat frightened of his tone.  “That was the most I could mask my chakra, which is down to 10%.”

Sakura felt something hard run into her at which she let out a yelp of surprise mixed with pain because her leg had twisted in the wrong direction.  Her leg was bandaged very tightly so it reduced the amount of pain but all she could do was push off against the object that was on top of her to get to her leg.  

Shisui realized his mistake the minute he heard Sakura’s yelp.  He was amazed at her ability to sense Itachi’s chakra at its lowest that he subconsciously tackled the girl into a bear hug, but he had forgotten about her leg.  He quickly got off her when he felt her struggling and sat back and watched her massage her leg. She had tears running down her cheeks and he felt so bad for messing up.  

She stopped crying and whimpering after ten minutes - ten minutes of torture for Shisui - at which the older Uchiha gingerly laid a hand on her head.  “I’m so sorry Princess, I forgot about your leg and I was just so impressed that I couldn’t help myself.”

Sakura glanced up at Shisui, “You were impressed?” she asked, having forgotten the fact that Shisui had inadvertently caused her a great deal of physical pain; she was ecstatic at the possibility that she was good at something other than reading.  

Shisui and Itachi told her about their little game they had going on and informed her that while meditating she was just as good as them at sensing chakra.  Sakura was in complete and utter shock and was looking at them in disbelief. She didn’t think they would lie to her face, but she also couldn’t imagine being remotely close to their skill in anything so she just smiled and pretended to believe them.  

Sakura’s stomach growled loudly, at which she blushed and looked away from Shisui who had barked out a laugh.  None of them had realized how much time had passed by as the sun was already starting to set. Shisui was afraid that Sakura’s father would be upset and never let him hang out with her again so he quickly grabbed Sakura into his arms, told her to say her goodbyes to Itachi and ran for Sakura’s house.  

When they arrived at her house, Shisui hesitated; he didn’t want her mother to open the door as she clearly disapproved of him being around her daughter.  Sakura asked to be put down and hugged his legs “You can leave so Mama doesn’t see you. Thank you for letting me see you spar.” She looked up at him from her hug with a wide grin.

Shisui knelt down to her level and looked her straight in the eyes.  He noticed Sakura flinch slightly, but he kept on looking at her with a small smile.  “I have a short mission that will last three days with Itachi. I’m sorry I’m missing your aunt and uncle’s funeral, I wanted to be there for you, but I’ll come see you first thing when I come back ok?” 

Sakura nodded and turned to go inside the house.  Shisui let out a sigh and body flickered away from the Haruno household.  He had a few things he had to discuss with Itachi regarding his meeting with the Hokage; it seemed that the clan was starting to put pressure on the council which put unwanted pressure on the already strained relationship. 

__________________________

Mebuki had started worrying about Sakura an hour before the sun set, but Kizashi reassured her that she was in good hands.  He had managed to convince his wife that Shisui was a good and trustworthy kid who looked out for the wellbeing of their daughter.  

Just as supper was ready, Sakura walked through the door and greeted her family.  Mebuki rushed over to check on her daughter, to make sure she was alright and not in pain. Once Sakura reassured her that she was just a little tired, Kizashi brought Sakura her crutches.  

The family ate in near silence, simply enjoying each other’s presence. Once the meal was finished, Sakura and Takeshi did the dishes while her parents went to the living room to discuss the funeral that was scheduled in two days.  

Since her family had returned, she hadn’t had the chance to speak with Takeshi.  The two had always been very close growing up and shared everything with each other.  Takeshi had told her about his first crush and when he started going out with his first and only girlfriend - to this day, neither his parents not Sakura’s parents knew he had been in a relationship.

Takeshi kept sneaking glances at Sakura, looking as though he wanted to say something.  It was strange, Takeshi had never refrained from speaking to her before and she surmised it was about his parents.  

“You can always ask me anything Take-kun.” She reassured him and saw him visibly let go of the tension in his shoulders. He took a step away from the sink towards her and enveloped her in an almost bear hug, holding onto her as if his life depended on it. 

“You didn't tell us any details, and I thank you for that. You can't imagine how much I appreciate it.”  He quietly sobbed into her hair.

Sakura returned the embrace with just as much fervor, happy with herself for keeping the vivid details of the deaths to herself; she knew it would only hurt her family more.  After seeing her father cry, she never wanted to have any member of her family hurt ever again, as it broke her heart. She vowed to be there for her family since she already had a few weeks to mourn the loss of her aunt and uncle and they had just started mourning the previous day.

“I’ll always be here for you Take-kun.”  She reassured her cousin.

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight Kura-chan?” He quietly asked.  “I don’t want to be alone.” he was hoping that they would spend the entire day together tomorrow, not just because his parents had passed away, but because he had dearly missed his cousin.  

He was six years old when Sakura was born and he had taken an instant liking to the calm baby.  He spent every minute he had with Sakura, observing her and encouraging her when she started to walk and talk.  He knew her parents were always busy and spent a lot of time travelling outside the village - they couldn’t always travel with a child, so they left her with Hiroki and Natsuko more often than not- so he helped his parents take care of her when she was in the village.  

He had watched her grow up into such an inquisitive and loving child that he felt honoured to be a part of her life.  He had never felt jealousy towards her, even when at four years old - and he was ten - she was comprehending the same business and trading strategies he was reading about.  He would sometimes ask her to explain some concepts he had recently learned in school without shame, she would sometimes learn the material, then explain it to him so he would understand.  He sometimes felt that she was the older one of the two, just by her maturity and knowledge, but never resented her. 

“Of course!  You never have to ask.” She told him happily.  

The two eventually walked to the living room to sit with Sakura’s parents and go over the funeral arrangements.  They walked through the steps of preparing a funeral with the two after having seen Sakura’s curiosity. They explained that the first step is to speak to the Hokage to set a date and time, then choose one of three locations throughout the village typically reserved to funeral ceremonies.  Once the location was chosen, it was time to inform the friends and family of the deceased. For that, Kizashi and Mebuki had posted an obituary notice in the newspapers and informed the jonin commander - he was in charge of all shinobi, not just the jonin - of the date and time of the funeral.  Kizashi asked the two children if they wanted to accompany himself and Mebuki the next day and inform any civilian friends and remaining family in the village of the funeral. Sakura squeezed Takeshi’s hand and nodded her head slowly; she was looking forward to being with her family, and even though she knew Shisui would understand, she was still glad that he had a mission for three days.

The family spent the rest of the evening sitting together in the living room, each reading their own book.  Kizashi was sitting on the couch, going over the purchases and sales from their recent business trip all the while hugging Sakura with one arm who was curled up on his side.  She was reading the book Shisui gave her on medical ninjutsu and thoroughly enjoying the different ways chakra could be used to heal; from diminishing the pain from an injury to stitching skin, tissue and muscles back together and even performing extensive surgery.  The book didn’t go into too many details, seeing as it was an introductory book for medical nins, but she loved learning about the different things chakra could do. It was fascinating and to her, the sky was the limit.

Takeshi broke Sakura out of her reading when he started whimpering softly beside her as he slept.  As gently as possible, she put her book on her father’s lap and ran a hand through her cousin’s hair to which he relaxed almost immediately and kept sleeping soundly.  

If it was possible, Sakura would gladly take all the hardships away from her family and endure it.  She felt capable of handling all of their fears and worries if only it would make them blissfully happy.  That was all she could ask for, for the people she cared about to be happy and never have anything bad happen to them.  

“Sometimes I think you’re much older than you actually are Sakura-chan.”  Her father whispered to her. He gently hugged her seeing as she was already leaning up against him, while making sure Takeshi wasn’t disturbed from his sleep.  

“You’re too caring and nice for a shinobi Sakura.” came her mother’s ever-present objection to her career choice.

“That’s what would make her a great shinobi Mebuki, she cares so much about others” her father defended her.

Sakura appreciated her father’s defense, but every time her mother tried to dissuade her from become a shinobi, she felt anger boil up inside, but she refused to talk back to her mother.  She did however, internalize her anger, she would imagine all the things she would say and things she would do to prove to her mother that she would be a capable shinobi. However, that was all in her head and she knew she was too reserved to express anything out loud.  

“She’s already missed a few weeks of school, maybe it would be best for her to stay home this year to recuperate and start next April.” Her mother said.  

Sakura was scheduled to start her first semester of school the week after her birthday, but seeing as she had been hospitalized and struggling to move around at home for a few weeks, she still hadn’t stepped foot in the academy.  She was itching to go to school and learn seeing as she had worked hard to get the approval of her parents to attend. She was hoping that she would be in the same class as Ino so she wouldn’t be all alone, but she convinced herself that she would make other friends even if Ino was not with her.  

“No!” Sakura blurted out, “I can go to school next week, I can use my crutches.  I can move around, I’ll find a way.” She was damn near panicking, she didn’t want to wait another year before starting the academy. She wanted to be in Ino’s grade, and graduate with her.  She wanted to learn everything they taught about combat, politics, self improvement and the shinobi nations. 

“You can’t be falling behind Sakura, it will be too much to catch up” Her mother stated.

“Mebuki, we can wait a few days before making a decision.  If Sakura can show us that she is capable of moving around on her own, I see no problem with her attending the academy.  There is no combat in first year anyways.” Her father appeased her mother. Sakura understood what her father was doing; he gave her a goal to strive for to prove to her mother that she could attend the academy.

“Alright, we’ll see on Sunday if she can walk on her own to the academy and back.”

Sakura was doubtful that she would be able to go to the academy and back in one go, but she was determined to give it her all and she would start by only moving using her crutches the next day.  She looked at her mother and absently noded to let her know she had heard her. She was going to need all of her energy to walk around tomorrow, and the best way was to go to sleep.

“Takeshi-kun, did you want to go to bed?” She gently nudged her cousin awake.

Takeshi slowly woke up just enough to drag himself off the couch and walk to Sakura’s room.  The pink haired girl got up, kissed her parents good night and grabbed her crutches before hobbling off to her room for the night. 

_______________________

The Haruno family spent the next day together, walking around the village to let Hiroki and Natsuko’s friends know of the funeral the next day and enjoying the abnormally warm April afternoon sun in their yard.  The backyard was quite spacious seeing as they lived on the outskirts of the civilian district. Sakura’s parents grew a variety of flowers and plants and even had a plentiful vegetable garden every summer. Seeing as they were often outside the village, Sakura had been taught how to take care of all the flora around the house.  

There were several cherry blossom trees and many evergreens growing at the edge of their property while flowers were planted at the base of each tree, showcasing an assortment of different and colourful species.  Sakura’s favorite part of the yard was the open space in the middle of everything where she loved spending her days playing shinobi with her cousin. Takeshi would usually pretend to be the civilian who needed protection while Sakura escorted him around the yard and sometimes even through the village.  

Today, however, Sakura had struggled to keep up with her family as they walked around the market.  She kept telling her father that she had to walk on her own the entire day so her mother would let her attend the academy.  After two hours of torture, her hands were full of blisters from using the crutches and her underarms felt raw. 

Takeshi didn’t like the fact that Sakura was in pain, so he had asked if they could go back home to spend the day away from the hustle and bustle of the city.  He had said that he didn’t feel like being around others since he would have to force himself to be presentable the next day for the funeral. 

Sakura and her father spent most of the afternoon together, while Takeshi and Mebuki each read a book side by side on lawn chairs.  Sakura was finally able to spend some one on one time with her father, something she dearly missed doing. The two spoke of everything, ranging from Shisui to her broken leg to her father’s latest business trip and finally to making friends in school.  

“Papa, why don’t kids like me?”  She asked.

“I wish I knew sweetheart, you’re an amazing kid and I can’t see why they wouldn’t like you” he replied.  He had seen the way kids treated her and had, on occasion, spoken to the parents about their kids’ behaviour which only ended up making things worse.  He sincerely hoped that the kids at the academy would be more welcoming to his daughter but wasn’t going to hold his breath.

“At least I have Shisui and Itachi and Ino when you’re out of the village.”  She told her father. 

He gently ruffled her hair, trying to convey his regret at not being more present for his daughter, causing the child to blush slightly and throw herself into her father’s arms.  He caught her carefully, trying to not jostle her leg at all - it was something he was going to have to get used to since the doctors had stated there was nothing they could do for Sakura.  

He ran his fingers through her hair until she fell asleep on his lap.  Sakura had always loved being close to others, every morning when she woke up, she would give her parents a hug and a kiss to start her day and always a hug and a kiss goodnight.  It was her favorite way of greeting her family and she delighted in the comfort it offered her. Every time he left on a business trip, Kizashi missed her affectionate greetings, so he soaked up her affection every time he came back to the village. 

Kizashi was not looking forward to going on his annual business trip to Suna in less than two weeks, but it was the biggest trip of the year.  They always made the most profit during this trip, which meant that they could not miss it. Luckily, they had planned to leave a week earlier to enjoy the sights, but with the funeral and not wanting to leave Sakura on her own afterwards, they had gladly postponed their departure.  It would be Takeshi’s first time coming with them to the annual meeting, and the boy was excited. Kizashi was impressed with his nephew’s grasp on profitable trading and knew he would grow up to be an exceptional merchant.

“I’ll go make dinner for us Kizashi, can you bring the kids inside in twenty minutes?”  

Kizashi nodded and beckoned Takeshi over to him.  The young boy walked over and sat down beside him and started petting the sleeping girl’s hair.  

“I think she has nightmares of what happened.  I woke up last night and she was crying softly.”  Takeshi informed Kizashi. 

“I worry about her being alone.  I’ll have to talk to Shisui and see if he can check in on her when we’re gone.”  He stated with a frown. He knew he would have been affected by whatever Sakura may have seen, he couldn’t imagine the effect it had on his daughter.  

“Yeah, he seems good for her since she doesn’t have anyone to help her with being a shinobi anymore.” Takeshi finished his sentence ever so quietly, not able to keep a steady voice when thinking of his parents.  

A few moments later, Sakura opened one eye and peered up at her father and cousin.  They were both looking up at the sun, and they seemed at peace. She was glad that they were able to enjoy the afternoon, because she knew tomorrow was going to be hard for all of them.  She stretched her arms and grabbed both of their hands, thoroughly enjoying their closeness. Her stomach growled which caused both males to chuckle at her.

“Perfect timing Sakura-chan, dinner is just about ready.”  her father told her.

She sat up but refused her father’s helping hand - she needed to practice on her own.  She untied her bandages around her leg and rewrapped it tightly. She struggled to stand up on one leg but smiled when she managed without anyone else’s help.  She had flailed her arms around a bit to keep balance, but they important thing was that she succeeded. She saw the proud smile from her father and started walking towards the house with him and Takeshi.  Her crutches were in the living room, so she took small steps and put just enough weight on her shattered leg to stay balanced. 

Sakura looked up and saw her mother watching her carefully from the kitchen window with her hands clasped together in front of her heart.  When their gazes met, her mother didn’t hesitate to smile and give her a thumbs up in silent support, startling Sakura. 

Mebuki had always opposed Sakura’s desire to become a shinobi at first, but at the end of the day, she would be proud of her daughter no matter what she ended up doing in life.  Whether Sakura wanted to become a shinobi, a merchant, a doctor or a chef, Mebuki would always cheer her on to do her best - she just found it difficult to show support when it came to the life of a shinobi due to the risks involved.  

Mebuki had thought Sakura would to want to stop being a shinobi after what had happened, but to her surprise, it seemed to only cement the little girl’s decision so Mebuki had vowed to help her daughter out in whichever way possible.  Of course, this vow came after Kizashi had explained everything to her the previous day when he told her that Sakura was with Shisui and would keep being around the boy. The woman reluctantly agreed that Shisui seemed like he cared about Sakura a great deal and would never harm her, and she decided that it would be best if Shisui had a meal with the family so they could be sure that she was in good hands.  Kizashi was tasked to talk to Sakura about it - which he did that afternoon in their backyard - so their daughter could invite the Uchiha.

The back door opened and Mebuki saw Takeshi run to the living room.  Next, she saw Sakura walk slowly through the front door with a triumphant smile on her face and she couldn’t help but smile back at her daughter.  Mebuki knew Sakura was very smart but seeing the girl learn to use a shattered leg and endure the pain showed her how resilient she was. 

Mebuki couldn’t begin to imagine the amount of physical pain Sakura was in as she had only ever broken her arm once in her life and it had been in a cast which helped her avoid using it.  She remembered her arm had hurt and she had cried out when she accidentally tried to hold the fridge door open with it; but she didn’t think her pain could remotely come close to Sakura’s.  

“Here you go Sakura-chan!!”  Takeshi rushed over to his cousin to her the crutches.  Sakura suddenly threw herself at her cousin when he was within reach which made a huge grin appear on Takeshi’s face.  He spun Sakura around and held her close to him. Suddenly Takeshi maneuvered Sakura to carry her over his shoulder and Sakura let out a squeal of laughter 

Kizashi walked over to his wife and enveloped her in a hug.  They were both enjoying the fact that the two children were acting like their old selves at the moment; they weren’t thinking of the death or of loss.  They set up the table while they listened as laughter bounced off the walls, sharing a smile every now and then. 

__________________________

After dinner, Sakura’s mother insisted that she would help Sakura with the dishes, which made the little girl very suspicious.  Her mother had been acting strangely the entire day and she didn’t know what to think of it. Maybe her mother had already cancelled her enrollment to the academy? Or maybe she would be forced to go on all of her parents’ business trips with them?  No matter what Sakura thought, it couldn’t be good, so she washed the dishes quietly, trying to delay the inevitable conversation with her mother. 

“I’m sorry Sakura-chan,” Her mother half whispered half sobbed.  Sakura’s brows furrowed slightly trying to figure out why her mother would be sorry.  “I’m sorry for trying to stop you from becoming a shinobi.”

Sakura whipped her head around and stared up at her mother with eyes as wide as saucers.  She had always secretly hoped that her mother would eventually agree to her becoming a shinobi, but she didn’t think it would actually happen.  Sakura didn’t know what to do, so she just kept staring at her mother, hoping she would elaborate. 

“I just wanted to protect you,” her mother said as she knelt down to look Sakura in the eyes. “but your father helped me realize that the best thing for me to do is to be there for you.  I may not be able to help you train, but I will do everything in my power to make sure you have everything you need.” 

Sakura gently wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck and gave her a gentle kiss.  “Mama, I love you.”

It was all Sakura managed to say.  She wanted to express her gratitude and tell her mother how much it meant to her and that she would do her best to be strong.  She wanted to tell her how happy she was that they wouldn’t be on opposite sides of the fence anymore. All Sakura could do was cry silently in her mother’s arms as her father and cousin stood by the kitchen and smiled happily at the two who had finally reconciled.  

  
  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7

The weather was very representative of what Sakura felt that day; it was miserable, dark and very unwelcoming. It was unnaturally humid and felt like they were in the eye of a tornado, expecting chaos to unleash at any minute. 

It didn't help that Sakura slept alone that night right up until her screams woke everyone up in the house, causing instant panic.  She hadn't thought of the nightmares since her family had returned, but her first night alone served as a reminder of her damaged psyche.  The tendril monster was especially brutal this time, tearing her aunt and uncle’s limbs one by one, starting with the toes and moving upwards.  By the time he ripped one of her uncle’s leg off, her father was shaking her shoulder to wake her up.

The images from her nightmare stayed a while after she had been woken up and her mind was telling her that the tendril monster was shaking her, getting ready to rip her arm out of her shoulder socket.  Sakura had accidentally lashed out and punched her father in the jaw after which everyone moved back in order to give her some space. 

The first thing Sakura saw when the dream veil lifted was Takeshi’s wide eyes, brimming with tears.  She blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what was going on and suddenly, her father had come to her side and wrapped her in a tight embrace. 

“You're awake now, no more nightmares.  We're here for you, Sakura-chan.” Her father was cradling her and repeating those words - to comfort her or himself, she wasn't quite sure.  

Takeshi took a hesitant step towards his cousin, his mind reeling with the rawness of Sakura’s screams.  __ He tried to speak up but he couldn't make a sound, fear causing him to freeze up.

Everyone had stayed in Sakura’s room after that, hoping they would be able to sleep for another few hours before the funeral. Takeshi layed facing Sakura, watching her expression soften as she fell back asleep.  He smiled softly and promptly fell asleep once he was satisfied with Sakura's dreamless sleep. 

_____________________________________

Sakura was mindlessly following her parents down the street on their way to the funeral.  It seemed surreal to her that today would be the day that they would all say goodbye to her aunt and uncle.  She didn't want to say goodbye and risk forgetting about them; she wanted to greet them every day and they would ruffle her hair and teach her about being a shinobi.  They would die of old age after retiring from active duty in many years, after they had grandchildren.  

Of course, Sakura knew that was a pipe dream but she felt a rightness in her chest at the thought of parting with them.  She was aware that they had been brutally murdered, she simply wished that none of it had happened. She did like imagining what life would be like if they were still alive. She liked to think they would be teaching her about poisons and she would be coming back home from the academy and telling them all about her day; what she learned, who her classmates were and all the new friends-

“Kura-chan, are you alright?” Takeshi asked as he entwined his fingers with hers.

Sakura focused on everything around her, noticing they had walked a good twenty minutes without her realizing it. She looked at her cousin and gave a small smile “Yeah, I was just imagining what things would be like if they were still alive.”

“I know it would be nice, but you shouldn't think too much about that.  It may make life harder to get by at times.” 

Sakura looked up at her cousin and wondered when he had gotten so wise.  She noticed he had grown older during his last trip by the way his jawline was a bit more defined; his face had lost some of its roundness.  She liked to imagine that he would resemble his father when he reached adulthood and he would find the perfect woman and he would have the most perfect children-

“Kura-chan… you're off in your own world again.”  He teased her. 

Sakura grinned and stuck out her tongue at him and focused on picking up her speed on the crutches to catch up to her parents.  

They soon arrived at the field of flowers where they had decided to hold the funeral.  It was very fitting seeing as the Hiroki was a poisons expert and Natsuko adored the smell of flowers.  

When Sakura glanced around the reception, she saw that the predominant flowers were peonies and sweet peas arranged in small bouquets throughout the reception with cherry blossoms and bluebells beautifully decorating the picture frames of her aunt and uncle.  She was able to name the flowers - her parents dealt with flowers across the shinobi nations, she would be very disappointed in herself if she hadn't been able to learn the very basics of her family trade - but she didn't know what they symbolized. 

“Mama, what do the flowers mean?” she quietly asked her mother after having caught up with her. 

Her mother knelt down in front of Sakura and placed her hand on the girl’s head. “The peonies represent bravery and I coupled them with sweet peas which mean goodbye.”  Her mother took a shaky breath and Sakura could see the tears forming in her eyes. 

“Takeshi suggested we decorate his parents’ picture frames with bluebells and cherry blossoms to show how grateful we are that they protected you.” By the end of her sentence, Mebuki allowed her tears to fall down her cheeks and choked back a sob. 

Takeshi, who had been standing beside Sakura when she asked her mother about the flowers, stepped towards Mebuki and pulled Sakura towards them.  He hugged Sakura close to him as he leaned into Mebuki softly thanking them both for being there for him. 

_____________________________________

During the ceremony, Sakura stood to the side with her family while the Hokage gave a short speech about both Hiroki and Natsuko. She wasn't aware that the Hokage knew her aunt and uncle quite as well as he did; as she had always assumed the Hokage only really interacted with the Jounin of the village. His heartfelt speech only reinforced the notion that the village was worth protecting, seeing as it was all part of one big family.  Sakura didn't have a big family, seeing as most of them basically disowned Hiroki for becoming a shinobi and they shunned her father for supporting Hiroki’s career choice. She only ever spoke to a distant cousin who lived in the northern part of Fire country once. No other family members lived in Konoha, it was only her mother, father, Takeshi and aunt and uncle that had lived in this part of Fire country. She had never met her paternal grandmother but she was the only other person who accepted Hiroki’s choice to become a shinobi.

She took the chance to look around at everyone who was attending the ceremony.  Again, she didn't know that her aunt and uncle had been a part of so many people’s lives.  There were two shinobi who were standing together fairly close to the front that seemed particularly affected by the loss of her aunt and uncle. One of them had long black spiky hair and what Sakura assumed to be a bandage that ran across the bridge of his nose while the other had his hair covering one eye and wore his forehead protector like a bandana. 

They were definitely the most affected - aside from her family of course - and it made Sakura all the more curious.  They were shinobi, probably at least chunin if Sakura had to guess, so it was possible they either worked with one or both of the deceased or they had been frequent teammates.  Sakura was tempted to bet that they were co-workers more than teammates, just because she knew her aunt and uncle rarely went on missions.

She wanted to walk over to the two but she didn't know what to say.  Would she tell the two shinobi that ther aunt and uncle were no longer suffering? That everything would be alright?  That they shouldn't be sad? She didn't think that anything would be appropriate, so she just stood there and looked at them.  She felt like she was invading their privacy, but she was more curious about them than anything. 

The one with the spiky hair glanced around the reception and locked eyes with her.  For half a second Sakura felt immense guilt at being caught staring at the two, but she gave him a sympathetic smile and her heart broke a little when he returned one of the saddest smiles she had ever seen.  

She grabbed Takeshi’s hand and squeezed it, silently asking for his support and he squeezed right back.  She decided to continue looking around the reception and saw a woman with red eyes and long wavy black hair. The eyes reminded her of Shisui and Itachi and she hoped they were doing well on their mission.  She also hoped they finished their mission before her parents and Takeshi left for Suna; she didn't want to be alone now that the nightmares had returned. 

Takeshi squeezed her hand repeatedly to gain her attention and motioned her to look towards the front of the reception where the spiky haired shinobi and his friend were both looking at her.  Sakura’s eyes widened ever so slightly, startled that they were both looking at her. She had assumed her brief glance with the hedgehog nin was a short interaction that neither party would ever reflect upon again, but it seemed he had informed his friend.  

Hedgehog - the nickname Sakura figured suited him best - gave her an encouraging smile and even managed to give her a small wave before his friend - Bandana - gave an exasperated sigh and nudged him to stop. Sakura smiled and chuckled quietly at the two, glad that they were able to temporarily be in better spirits. 

When it was time for everyone to walk up and pay flowers down for the deceased, Sakura walked hand in hand with Takeshi.  Takeshi held both of their bouquets of carnations as Sakura used one crutch to help her along. She had somehow been able to hold in her tears during the entire reception but as soon as she laid down her flowers, she finally realized that this was the last goodbye.  She stood there, quietly telling her aunt and uncle how much she loved them, how much she admired them and how no one could ever replace them. She told them that she would train to become a strong shinobi and do everything in her power to avenge them if she could. She told them of all her hopes and dreams, how Takeshi would grow up to be someone amazing and that they would be so proud of him. She wanted to spend hours standing there and telling them everything and anything she could think of but her father gently picked her up and walked away.  

She knew she was making a scene, but she didn't want to leave. She tried to reach out to her aunt and uncle, tried to go back to them but her father held on tightly. Through her tears she saw Hedgehog looking at her but couldn't make out his expression. She didn't care if he thought she was being childish or if she was making a fool of herself, she didn't want to say goodbye anymore.

Sakura started flailing her arms and legs, anything to get her father to let go of her.  She bit the inside of her cheek and soldiered through the pain radiating from her leg. It was stupid but she didn't care if she was in pain, it only fueled her drive to go talk to her aunt and uncle again.

“Sakura-chan, we’ll be able to come back and visit everyday if you want.  We just have to let everyone say goodbye today. We have to be considerate to others, they all knew Hiroki and Natsuko too.”  Her father reassured her, hoping it would calm her down.

Kizashi had never seen Sakura so recklessly determined to do something and it scared him a little.  He knew she was in severe pain but she kept on struggling to get free. He quickly walked away from the reception while Takeshi followed him, carrying Sakura’s crutch.  

“I’ll bring her home Mebuki, can you deal with things here?”

“I’ll be fine, please make sure our girl’s alright.” Mebuki said worriedly

Sakura calmed down after a few minutes but began shaking from the pain she had caused herself.  Her tears were slowing down and her breathing became more regular by the time they entered their home.

“Where will I be able to talk to them?” She asked quietly.

“They have a tombstone in the cemetery that we’ll be able to go visit whenever you want.” Her rather informed her. “We're going to have a lot of people in the house soon, but we can go visit the tombstone tomorrow.”

Sakura nodded against his shoulder, and said “can you bring me to my room for a bit?”

“Of course sweetheart, come downstairs when you're ready.” 

The Haruno household was very busy that afternoon as most people who attended the funeral came to spend the afternoon. Civilians and shinobi interacted with each other and everyone told their favorite stories of Hiroki and Natsuko.  

Mebuki had just finished preparing tea for everyone when she decided to go check up on her daughter and see if she wanted to come down and hear all the different shinobi  stories - she was trying her best to be supportive of Sakura’s career choice. She walked up the stairs and gently knocked on Sakura’s bedroom door “Sakura, sweety, did you want to come downstairs for a bit?”

When Mebuki didn't hear a response she quietly opened the door only to find the bedroom empty.  She walked inside and looked around, not finding her daughter anywhere - maybe Sakura had gone downstairs and she just hadn't seen her yet.  Mebuki made her way to her husband and asked him if he had seen Sakura but he thought she was still in her bedroom as well.  

They enlisted Takeshi in helping them look for Sakura around the house.  The three thoroughly looked around the house and in the yard but to no avail.  Mebuki was starting to panic a little, did someone kidnap her daughter? Could Shisui have come back from his mission and taken her away without telling anyone?  What if she was in danger or hurt somewhere, all alone?  

A shinobi with black spiky hair walked up to the three Haruno and asked if there was something wrong.  

“You haven't seen a pink haired child around the house, have you?  It's hard to miss her.” Kizashi asked, trying to lighten the mood for his family.  

“I remember seeing her at the funeral, but not here, sorry.  Do you need help finding her?”

“If you happen to see her around the house, could you bring her to us?”  Kizashi asked, thinking that maybe a shinobi would have an easier time finding his daughter if she was hiding. The shinobi nodded, walked over to his friend and started his search for the pink haired girl. 

“This isn’t like her, Kizashi, she's never hid from us before.”  Mebuki continued to express her concerns as they made their way to Sakura’s bedroom.  Once inside, all three searched every nook and cranny of the room until Takeshi noticed something odd. 

“Her bedsheets are missing from her bed.” 

Kizashi’s eyes widened as he put the pieces together and walked over to the window. He pulled the curtains aside and instantly knew where Sakura was.  He chuckled softly to himself and let out a sigh of relief.

“I think I know where she is.  She used the bedsheets to climb out of the window like the stories we used to read to her. And I bet you she's at the cemetery.”  He informed his wife and nephew. 

“Why the cemetery?”  Mebuki asked.

“I told her that Hiroki and Natsuko’s tombstone was where we could go to talk to them. I said we could go tomorrow but I guess she didn't want to wait that long.” Kizashi smiled as he made his way down the stairs and out of the house to go see his daughter.  

____________________________________

Kizashi found Sakura sitting on the grass in front of a tombstone - he would have to ask her how long it took her to find it since he hadn't even known where it was - with her legs stretched out in front of her and her big book of chakra on her lap. She was animatedly describing the spar she had seen between Shisui and Itachi - he had already heard this story at least 5 times - with the most enthusiasm he's ever seen coming from her. She looked so carefree and happy that it pained him to know she may only be this excited at the cemetery from now on.  He had a feeling she would be spending a lot of time here once she started at the academy. 

He slowly made his way over to Sakura and placed his hand on her head. She beamed at him and tilted her face upwards where he saw the telltale signs of crying; puffy eyes, red cheeks and dried tears.  He sat down beside his little girl and let her finish her story.

“You scared us with that little disappearing act.” Kizashi tried to not reprimand her too harshly.

“Sorry Papa, I just… I just wanted to speak to them again.  I won't do it again.” His daughter said softly. 

“I will say that I’m pretty impressed though. You managed to climb out of your window and into the yard while carrying that big book without anyone noticing you.  Then you walked all the way over here, and that's at least a kilometer and a half - and without your crutches! When did you leave your room?” Kizashi wasn't a genius but he figured that she must have left shortly after he left her in her room.

“Don't be mad… I waited 10 minutes after you and Takeshi-kun left my room.”  She was looking up at him with pleading eyes and he knew he could never be mad at her, she was his world.

“Well at least I’m pretty sure your mother will allow you to attend the academy after she hears about this.”  Kizashi laughed as he thought of Mebuki’s expression of disbelief when he would tell her later that day. 

The two sat by the tombstone until the sun started to set - Sakura wanted to stay but Kizashi pointed out that she was slowly falling asleep - then made their way back to the house, hand in hand.  

“Sakura-chan, what would you like to do for your late birthday?”  He wasn't sure what Sakura’s reaction would be at the mention of her birthday seeing as it was a horrific experience for her, but he hadn't spoiled her as of yet and he was itching to do so.  

Her silence was enough of a response for Kizashi, so he figured he would surprise her with something he knows she loves. “How about this then: tomorrow we can go watch some shinobi train.”

Sakura tackled him into a hug and he gently lifted her up onto his shoulders - her favorite method of travel as she longed to be tall.  He stopped chuckling long enough to say “I’ll take that as a yes.” at which she hummed in agreement. 

By the time the duo made it back home, only Mebuki and Takeshi were there, cleaning the house. Sakura had fallen asleep and Kizashi was now carrying her in his arms, always mindful to not move her leg. 

“Takeshi, are you ok to sleep in Sakura’s room tonight?”  Kizashi asked, not wanting a repeat performance of the previous night. 

“Yeah! Can I finish cleaning tomorrow morning?” He asked Mebuki, today had been emotionally exhausting for everyone and Takeshi seemed to almost be falling asleep on his feet, pushing himself to clean so his aunt wouldn't have to do all the work. 

“I think we could all go to bed early tonight.  But this time, everyone sleeps in our bed, it’s much bigger than Sakura-chan’s.” Mebuki glared playfully at the two males - they had been the ones to insist they slept in Sakura’s room the other time - and followed her family upstairs. 

“I’ll be bringing Sakura to see some shinobi train tomorrow as her birthday present, did you two want to come?”  Kizashi quietly asked his wife and nephew.

“I’ll pass.” Mebuki deadpanned. 

“Me too, I want to work on my present… it’s almost done!”  Takeshi exclaimed. He had been working on a collage of their family for Sakura.  He had finished it when they were travelling but after coming home, he decided to add more sections of his parents for Sakura. 

“Then a father-daughter date it is.”  Kizashi stated excitedly.

____________________________________

Kizashi woke up with the sun shining through his bedroom window. He was glad that the funeral was over with and had the chance to say goodbye to his brother.  The two had been close, despite their family having disowned Hiroki for becoming a shinobi and it was very hard for him to lose his only family left - at least the only family worth mentioning if you asked him.  

He stretched and noticed he had something against his side so he opened his eyes to see Sakura kneeling beside him with a cheshire grin.  She was trying her best to keep still but she was vibrating ever so slightly, unable to contain her excitement.

“I think today is a great day to clean the entire house and the yard.  It could be a nice family activity, right Sakura-chan?” Kizashi playfully asked his daughter. 

He was rewarded with an expression he loved to elicit from her; her eyes widened comically - the left one twitching occasionally - and her mouth moved but no sound escaped.  She was too adorable when she was speechless and in utter disbelief and Kizashi couldn't help but laugh.

Sakura then narrowed her eyes and glared at him - his second favorite expression.  

“You're too gullible sweetheart,” He stated as he got out of bed “go get dressed.”  She was out of bed and gone pretty fast for a girl with the use of only one leg.  

Kizashi sighed and got ready for his outing.  Before the funeral he had no idea where shinobi trained so he had used the opportunity yesterday and asked the shinobi at his house where he could bring his daughter. The consensus was that they could enter the training grounds and as long as they did not hide their chakra, they would be alright.  Kizashi didn't know how someone would hide their chakra but when the chunin mentioned it was something chunin and jonin did, he was fairly certain it wouldn't be a problem. Some of the shinobi even said that as long as Sakura didn't hide her chakra, they would be fine, stating that Kizashi didn't have enough chakra to be noticed unless someone was concentrating on it.  Basically his daughter had more chakra than him and he should never walk in a training ground alone for fear that the shinobi that were busy training wouldn't notice him in time - a nice blow to his ego, that he had to be accompanied by a child. Kizashi had made sure to glare at that particular shinobi whenever the chance arose yesterday. 

“Papa are you ready?” Sakura yelled from her bedroom. 

“I’ll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes!”

“Papa!!!”

“Fine, fine.  Make it fifty!”  Oh how he loved to bug her!  He heard the rushed footsteps coming towards his room so he quickly jumped under the covers.

“You went back to bed instead of getting dressed?!”  She yelled at him and it took a lot of effort for him not to burst out laughing. She grabbed the top blanket and pulled hard on it and fell to the ground in a heap. 

“Are you cold sweetheart?  Here, have more blankets!” Kizashi threw all the blankets from his bed onto Sakura and grabbed a few more that were folded to the side and even threw all the pillows onto her.  He could hear her muffled laugh and he debated going around all the rooms and getting more blankets. His decision process took about 3 seconds and he ran to Sakura's room first, then Takeshi’s room and finally the guest bedroom and gathered all the blankets and pillows.  He hurried back and placed everything on his bed and waited for Sakura to peak through the blankets then he started throwing everything he had gathered at her. 

By the time he was finished the blankets and pillows were blocking the door frame.  “Mebuki! Takeshi! Can you come up here for a moment?” Kizashi was a born prankster and jokester and loved to make others laugh, and it was the perfect time for everyone to laugh after having the funeral the previous day. 

“Kizashi what… did you...do?”  Mebuki questioned confusedly. 

A small laugh erupted from the blanket pile and Takeshi jumped on it. Miraculously he didn't injure Sakura and the two played around in the blankets as Mebuki and Kizashi shared a laugh. 

“I am not cleaning up this mess,”  Mebuki informed her husband, “if you don't clean it up, no one gets any blankets tonight.”  She knew he would try to leave the mess for her to clean up; as usual. 

“Yes, yes dear, I’ll put everything away when we come back this afternoon… or evening if Sakura-chan would like to go visit Ino later?”

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes!  I haven't seen her in forever!”  Sakura somehow managed to throw all the blankets and Takeshi off of her as soon as she heard Ino’s name. She got up and froze when she put weight on her leg.  “What… what do I tell her about my leg? Shisui said I shouldn't tell anyone about it because it's a weakness.” She trailed off and became very pensive. “But Ino’s my friend, she wouldn't be fighting me.”  

Kizashi didn't know how to respond to Sakura’s conundrum; he was tempted to let Sakura tell Ino since they were good friends but he just didn't know - he wished his brother was still alive, or that Shisui was in the village. 

“Maybe you can just tell her that you hurt your leg and leave it at that for now.”  Mebuki always had the answer to a difficult question. Now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense. 

Sakura hugged Mebuki tightly and suddenly threw a pillow at Kizashi with a wide grin before running away down the stairs.  He chuckled and kissed his wife goodbye and ruffled Takeshi’s hair before following his silly pink haired child down the stairs.  She had already taken his shoes and coat out for him and he warmed at the sentiment until she spoke “This way you have no excuses to take forever to get ready.”  and she even had the audacity to stick her tongue out at him. 

Kizashi played along and glared at her while getting ready and slowly made his way towards her. She had walked towards the street and was beaming a thousand watt smile at him as he stalked his prey.  He picked up his pace and caught her before she could.hobble too far away. She yelled as he tickled her relentlessly until she had tears of joy running down her face - she loved being tickled and he loved hearing her carefree laugh, it was a win-win situation for both of them. 

_____________________________________

As they got closer to the training grounds, her father put her down and walked with her, hand in hand.  After having seen Itachi and Shisui’s spar, Sakura was curious to see what regular shinobi were capable of doing, since she knew her two friends were the best of the best. She had seen her aunt and uncle spar once but it wasn't quite as exciting, they had been slower and more careful around each other. 

She was excited to see the training but she was even more excited to see Ino again.  She would have to explain why she hadn't been to school yet but also tell her that she would be going to school on Monday and they could sit together in class.  This got Sakura thinking; if they weren't in the same class, then maybe they could sit together at lunch or when they were let outside to play. But if they weren't in the same class, who would Sakura sit with?  She was already a few weeks late, so everyone probably already made their groups of friends and would-

Her thoughts were cut off as she felt something wet all over her face - as if someone had squirted water on her.  She wiped it off and saw red everywhere. Her father pulled hard enough on her hand that she fell on the ground right before he laid down on top of her.

“Papa, you're heavy, get off.” She pleaded. Were they under attack?  Maybe he was protecting her. But when her father didn't move, she managed to wiggle her way out from under him with great difficulty and she saw why he didn't respond.  There was a kunai in his neck and shoulder and all she could hear was some gurgling sounds coming from him.  

She sat there terrified and breathing heavily and looked around frantically until she saw the tendril monster come out from the bushes and she screamed for help as loud as she possibly could.  She kept screaming even when she felt a familiar chakra signature quickly coming towards her.   
  
  
  
  



End file.
